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).
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