Moment of Truth for Iran: waiting for the Caspian Summit

On August 12, according to the decision taken at the Caspian summit in 2022, the next meeting of the heads of the five states of the Caspian region is to be held in Tehran.

Given the difficult military and political situation in the region, today no one can say with absolute certainty that the summit in Tehran will take place. However, there is a solution, and the parties are preparing for the meeting, expecting Iran to fulfill its promise - to ratify the Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea, which has been suffering for many years and was adopted in 2018. Tehran promised to do this, and President Masoud Peseshkian kept his word, approving the document ahead of the summit and sending it to Parliament for ratification.

This was announced to journalists the other day by the press secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Esmail Bagai. According to him, the Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea has been sent to Parliament for ratification. "The ratification of this document will pave the way for the creation of a clear legal framework between the Caspian littoral states and prevent possible abuses that may arise in the absence of such a framework, especially by entities outside the region," IRNA quoted Bagai as saying.

He said that the draft law on the ratification of this convention had been approved as a matter of urgency, and the necessary consultations had been held between the Government and specialized parliamentary committees. "We hope that the process of its final ratification in parliament will be completed as soon as possible," said a spokesman for the Iranian Foreign Ministry.

This news was not widely reported in the media of the Caspian littoral states, although Peseshkian and the government took a really very important step. Apparently, few people believe that the bill will receive support. In addition, it must be borne in mind that the religious authorities have the last word in this country. It is possible that the summit in Tehran will again be held in an atmosphere of uncertainty, when Iran has been hindering the entry into force of the Convention for eight years. For many years, Tehran was not alone in this matter - Turkmenistan also had its own view on the issue. Russia and Kazakhstan did not interfere much, having already decided everything between themselves, and Baku had to fight virtually alone for a long time. He could not do nothing, because both neighbors were attacking his interests.

However, the Caspian Convention, which is also called the Constitution of the Caspian Sea, dated August 2018, was ratified by Ashgabat in December of the same year. And only Tehran remained a brake on the entry of coastal countries into their legal rights.

Peseshkian promised to ratify the document before the summit. There's just over a week left. The peculiarity of the current summit is that it coincides with the twentieth anniversary of the adoption of the Tehran Convention on the Caspian Sea (August 12, 2006). And Tehran is determined to hold it, despite the complexity of the situation.

We will see what the parliament's decision will be. In any case, there are no encouraging signals yet. On the contrary, immediately after Pezeshkian's decision became known, he and his team were criticized by various figures who were outraged that Iran was "making concessions."

Dr. Mir Mehrdad Mirsanjari, an associate professor at the university and a researcher in the field of culture and geopolitics, presented an extensive article in which he tried to prove why Iran does not benefit from this ratification. He compared the Convention signed in 2018 with the Treaty of Turkmanchay and stated that it was unacceptable for Iran to retain one fifth of the share, while it once owned half.

The associate professor is outraged that the documents related to the convention officially use "the names of wild, anti-Iranian and aggressive Caspian peoples instead of the correct names." Iran considers the "Mazandaran" and sometimes "Khazar" Sea to be the "correct" name for the sea washing the shores of five sovereign states. The name comes from the historical province of Mazandaran, which is located on the southern coast of the reservoir within Iran. If we follow this logic, then the Caspian Sea may be called the Salyan, Absheron or Lankaran Seas. Why not?

Associate Professor Mirsanjari also dislikes the clauses of the Convention allowing countries to build artificial islands, underwater cables and pipelines in their sector. He is confident that these projects are "geopolitically counterproductive to Iran's interests, security and national interests." He believes that the Iranian side should insist on applying the principle of joint exploitation of the entire Caspian Sea (?), and even a 20 percent share is a "cloying illusion" according to which Iran's "indisputable right should be reduced from half to one fifth."

Iranian political scientist Shuaib Bahman is another expert who believes that Iran should not ratify the Convention. He dismisses all the arguments of the authorities, considering the ratification to be "Iran's cession of territorial rights in the Caspian Sea." Moreover, the political scientist stated, "the ratification of this document will not only not help eliminate external threats, but will also damage the energy strategies of Iran and Russia, contributing to the export of energy resources of regional rivals to Europe." Instead of ratification, the authorities should protect Iran's historical rights. The Iranian political scientist is particularly afraid of article 14, which permits the laying of energy pipelines along the bottom of the Caspian Sea. From the expert's point of view, the application of such a clause may open the way for the direct transfer of oil and gas from the Eastern Caspian countries to the European market and affect some of Iran's geopolitical and transit advantages.

International relations expert Dariush Safarnejad also believes that the document should be returned to the government immediately. First, he said in a media commentary, it is necessary to consolidate Iran's rights in official documents, and then ratify the Convention, otherwise the other four countries will then decide to "influence the security, political and geopolitical processes in the Caspian region." In his opinion, any decision regarding the legal regime of the Caspian Sea should be made "solely on the basis of Iran's national interests and historical rights."

When Iranian experts claim certain special historical rights of Iran to the Caspian Sea, they are referring to both the nebulous antiquity and the treaties signed between the USSR and Persia in 1921 and 1940. Opponents of the Convention in Iran consider the rejection of a treaty signed with a non-existent empire to be a huge drawback of the current agreements. They claim that these agreements cannot be cancelled without creating a "replacement with the same legal basis."

It is impossible to understand the logic of Pezeshkian's opponents. It is simply missing. These circles adhere to agreements signed on a bilateral basis, while for thirty-five years there have been not two, but five sovereign states around the Caspian Sea that have full rights to maritime borders. And the fact that Iran has the shortest coastline is not a problem for Azerbaijan or Kazakhstan. The arguments about a certain 50 percent share of Iran in the Caspian Sea are also incorrect. Iranian experts who give this figure cannot specify the principle by which the USSR and Persia divided the sea in half. The same short coastline did not include half of the reservoir in any way. 

As can be learned from open sources, the Soviet-Persian treaty of 1921 did not contain provisions on the division of the Caspian Sea in percentage terms and did not assign Iran 50 percent of the water area. The treaty established the right of navigation only for Soviet and Iranian vessels. This provision is fully consistent with the requirements of the current Convention. Only now, not two, but five states have the exclusive right of navigation in the Caspian Sea.

The monopoly right to the Caspian Sea was held by tsarist Russia in accordance with the Gulistan and Turkmanchay treaties. The 1921 treaty abolished this monopoly. The sea was declared common and there was no talk of any division of shares.

All the years after the collapse of the USSR and before the signing of the Caspian Convention in 2018, the Iranian side stubbornly maintained that the only legitimate regulatory documents in the Caspian Sea were the two treaties signed with Persia. By doing this, Iran was trying to consolidate the idea of its exclusive rights among its neighbors in the reservoir, which would have to be taken into account in the future division. 

Although there was no concept of maritime borders in the treaties of 1921 and 1940, Iran did not dare to venture into Soviet territory and make claims to Moscow when offshore oil exploration and production began in Azerbaijan. The median line, which defines the sectoral division between the five countries according to the Convention, was drawn back in Soviet times to fix the maritime administrative borders of the Union republics. The Iranian side has never had any rights in the other four sectors outlined by this rule. Meanwhile, Azerbaijan was the master of its sector in Soviet times.

The fact that Russia declared itself the legal successor of the USSR does not mean anything for the issue of the status of the Caspian Sea. Therefore, Iran cannot appeal to the treaties of a century ago, claiming that they continue to work until the entry into force of the Convention. The rights of the USSR in the Caspian Sea after the collapse of the Union were automatically distributed among the coastal countries.

Russia and Kazakhstan quickly came to an agreement. By and large, the uncertainty over the status issue was beneficial to Russia, as it hindered Central Asia's ability to reach the West. In the old days, Kazakhstan did not think about any underwater communications, and did not participate in the clashes between Baku and Tehran. The fact that the Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea was finally adopted is primarily due to Azerbaijani diplomacy.

Iran and Russia were united in opposing the plans to lay underwater communications. And the latter, I think, played an important role in shaping Tehran's position.

Unfortunately, Azerbaijan alone had to clean up all this. In 1998, Iran tried to sign an agreement with Western companies on deposits in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea. In July 2001, an Iranian warship and a combat aircraft entered the territorial waters and airspace of Azerbaijan and demanded that the Geophysicist-3 research vessel stop geophysical exploration at the Alov oil field in the Caspian Sea, arguing that the borders were allegedly undefined. After the Turkish fighters appeared in the air, the intruders retreated. However, work on the site has not resumed so as not to aggravate the international situation.

The situation has changed a lot over the years. Views on the region, Azerbaijan's place in it, and the level of its cooperation with Central Asian countries have changed, which means a lot in the context of resolving issues in the Caspian Sea area. Moscow's position is also not the same as it was twenty years ago. Today, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov explicitly states what Russia expects from Iran. Russia expects Iran to ratify the Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea before the next summit of the Caspian littoral states. That is, until August 12, 2026. "Only the Islamic Republic of Iran is in line... We very much look forward to Tehran's ratification of this convention," Lavrov said earlier.

In January 2021, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan agreed on the disputed Dostlug field, located on the border of the two sectors. Turkmenistan has expressed interest in building the Trans-Caspian pipeline, which it had previously tried to stay away from. Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan have started the Trans-Caspian high-voltage underwater cable project. And at the end of last week, our countries began laying the Trans-Caspian fiber-optic communication line.

In other words, life goes on regardless of the entry into force or non-entry into force of the Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea, signed in August 2018. So August 12 will be the moment of truth not for the sea, but for Tehran.