Moscow Urges Iran to Ratify Caspian Convention It and Other Littoral States Signed in 2018

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 16 – When the five Caspian littoral states signed a convention in 2018 that delimited the sea and committed its signatories to keeping the forces of other countries from using that body of water, many saw this as a new day for that sea and the countries living around it.

            Four of the five countries involved – Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Russia and Turkmenistan – relatively rapidly ratified the accord; but one did not – Iran – something that has blocked the full implementation of the agreement and forced Moscow to try to work around Iran’s failure to ratify (windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/07/moscow-tries-to-work-around-tehrans.html).

            Now, given the warming of relations between Moscow and Tehran, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has expressed he hope that Iran will complete the ratification of the 2018 agreement by August of next year when the next summit of the Caspian five is scheduled to meet (akcent.site/novosti/43533).

            If Iran does so, that will represent a major victory for Russia which is very much interested in ensuring that Turkey does not use its close ties with Azerbaijan and Central Asian states to introduce forces on the Caspian, something its ties with Baku and shipbuilding prowess makes entirely plausible.

            Tehran appears to have dragged its feet not because it differs from Russia regarding Turkey. If anything, it is even more opposed to any Turkish expansion  than Russia is. Rather, Iran’s failure to ratify is clearly an effort by Tehran to extract more concessions from a weakened Russia.

            Thus what happens in the coming months regarding Iranian ratification of the Caspian Convention will be a useful measure of how far Russia is prepared to go to keep Iran in its corner and how willing Tehran is to try to force Moscow to adopt or move toward Iranian positions on other matters.