Caspian Sea deal signed by five coastal nations
ENGLAND - Vladimir Putin met the Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, on yesterday at the close of a dramatic week in which each had been threatened with punishing economic sanctions by the US.
But they were not meeting to publicly agree a united response to the act of “economic warfare”, as Russia described the sanctions. The two presidents were in the small Kazakh coastal city of Aktau to sign a legal convention on the Caspian Sea.
After more than twenty years of fraught diplomatic efforts, the five littoral Caspian nations – Russia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan – agreed upon a legal framework for sharing the world’s largest inland body of water, which bridges Asia and Europe and has reserves of oil and gas as well as being a habitat for sturgeon. Diplomats described the document as a regional constitution. Putin told a room where presidents and foreign ministers were present: “Our summit is exceptional if not truly epoch making.” Rouhani was more circumspect: “Today we have taken a very important step but we should recognise there are more important issues that need to be addressed.” He thanked his Caspian partners for their support since the withdrawal by the US from the nuclear deal known as the joint comprehensive plan of action.
This was a hard-won diplomatic victory. As late as last week Iranian analysts reported that Tehran was “50:50” on whether to sign. The main sticking point was how to apportion the seabed. Many favour division by a line equidistant from the five coastlines, but Iran – with the smallest coastline – does not. Russia was reluctant to allow Turkmenistan to pursue its proposed 300km gas pipeline to Azerbaijan, which would open up its huge, cheap, gas reserves to a European market at present dominated by Gazprom. The solution, it seems, has been to keep the wording vague and delay divisive decisions. Yesterday the five nations agreed to 15 miles of sovereign waters, in addition to a further 10 nautical miles of fishing area, beyond which there would be common waters. “What does this mean? Who knows”, one delegate told the Guardian. “The lawyers will have to tell you.”
The thorny issue of how to split up the hydrocarbon-rich subsoil territory has been put off. Reading from the convention document, Kairat Abdrakhmanov, the Kazakh foreign Minister, told the press: “The methodology for establishing state base lines shall be determined in a separate agreement among all the parties according to this convention on the legal status of the Caspian Sea. This is a key phrase, especially important for our Iranian partners.”
(The Guardian)