Partial Caspian Accord Reflects Shifts in Moscow and Tehran’s Concerns from Economics to Security

Paul Goble

            Staunton, August 15 – The leaders of the five Caspian littoral states were able to sign an partial accord on the status of that body of waterbecause Moscow and Tehran shifted their focus from contentious economic issues to security concerns, leaving some of the former unresolved in order to ensure that each got what it wanted in the latter case.

            “For Russia as for Iran, gas issues now have retreated into second-tier ones and considerations of security have become the main ones, Arkady Dubnov argues. As a result, Moscow and Tehran were willing to make concessions or leave open many economic issues in order to achieve their respective security goals (carnegie.ru/commentary/77042).

            Moscow wanted to ensure that all five countries would agree to excluding naval forces from non-littoral states and to making all by a 15-mile exclusion zone along the coasts a surface on which the Russian navy could operate without restriction.  And Tehran wanted to ensure that it would have an alternative way out if the gulf were to be closed.

            Both got what they wanted, but they did so only by dropping their objections to Trans-Caspian pipelines between Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan, something made easier because of declines in the price of gas, and putting off any resolution of the complicated issue of who has ownership over the seabed and its immense natural resources.

            The fact that the Aktau summit did not reach agreement on that means, the Russian commentator says, that the “the game is not over” (dw.com/ru/аркадий-дубнов-о-статусе-каспия-правила-определены-но-игра-не-закончена/a-45081051), with other analysts noting that other littoral states are worried about what comes next (kavkaz-uzel.eu/articles/324168/).

            Just how important the security issues have become for Moscow was underscored by Vladimir Putin’s statement about Russia’s plans to develop a deep-water port in the Daghestani city of Kaspiisk for both civilian and military uses and by Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu’s visit there today (riaderbent.ru/shojgu-pribyl-v-dagestan-dlya-inspektsii-stroitelstva-infrastruktury-kaspijskoj-flotilii.html  and onkavkaz.com/news/2388-dagestan-nakachayut-oboronnymi-dengami-kreml-postavil-na-kaspiisk-a-derbent-otlozhen-v-dolgii-j.html).