Paul Goble
Staunton, Aug. 9 – Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi says his government is sending Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea to its parliament for ratification that Iran and the other littoral states signed in 2018 but that Iran has not ratified in the intervening years.
This announcement comes only a week before Tehran is slated to host a meeting of representatives of the five littoral states – Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and the Russian Federation – in Tehran (iranintl.com/en/202608076370 and timesca.com/iran-moves-to-ratify-caspian-sea-agreement-amid-tensions/).
Iran has resisted ratifying the accord because conservatives in Tehran say it gives up too much of Iran’s claims to the Caspian; but officials like Gharibabadi say that the 2018 accord only deals with delimitation of the surface of the Caspian and that agreements about the seabed remain to be negotiated.
Moscow has pressed Tehran to ratify the agreement for many years and will no doubt view this as a major Russian diplomatic victory. (On that history, see windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2025/12/moscow-urges-iran-to-ratify-caspian.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2022/07/moscow-tries-to-work-around-tehrans.html, windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2021/07/iran-remains-stumbling-block-to.html and windowoneurasia2.blogspot.com/2021/12/iran-shows-no-signs-of-ratifying-2018.html.)
Other littoral states, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan in the first instance, will also be pleased because Iran’s ratification will make it easier for them to develop trans-Caspian networks and even oil platforms despite the fact that as Tehran is making clear, the 2018 accord does not directly resolve issues involving them.
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