How did Khatami’s administration deal with the Caspian Sea disputes

The Caspian Sea, since it has no way to open waters, is in fact a large lake whose regulations can be always set by the littoral states. Iran and Russia have no difference on most of the important issues in the Caspian Sea. As a result of this agreement, the two powers on the two sides of the sea have managed to prevent entering of military and non-military fleet of other countries under the pretext of friendship with other littoral states. Meanwhile, Iran has serious disagreement with Russia and other states on its share of the sub-basin resources of Caspian Sea.

 

Iran argues that it must receive one-fifth of the shared revenue of sub-basin resources or one-fifth of the geographical division of the sub-basin. Some Iranian legal experts believe that although this share is acceptable, but after Soviet Union’s dissolution Iran consented to this share hastily and lavishly and caused the other littoral states to abuse this generosity and even dispute our country’s natural share.

 

Legal experts believe that the historical treaties between Iran and Russia (1921) and Iran and the Soviet Union (1940) on Caspian Sea, despite their ample weaknesses that rooted in Soviet Union’s position as a superpower and Iran’s weaker hand, included interpretations that back up Iran’s current legal stance on its territorial claims. As they say, if after Soviet break-up Iran hadn’t become excited and had not consented to a joint share of one-fifth of revenue and resources of the sub-basin, based on those historical problematic treaties it could move in a course that Caspian Sea littoral states, instead of their current inappropriate behavior, had to try to gain Iran’s consent for a 20% share.

 

It was based on experts’ advice that Foreign Ministry of the Reform Government insisted on joint use of all of the resources of the Caspian Sea, Iran’s 20% share of everything that is going to be shared, including sub-basin resources, and historical treaties of 1921 and 1940, and through these firm stances showed its seriousness on issues that concern Iran’s national rights.

 

Russia’s dual, unfriendly, and provoking policy caused Iran great problem in receiving its share of the sea. By moving towards bilateral agreements with its new neighbors and finalizing the approach of dividing the Caspian’s sub-basin, Russia left Iran alone. This was reminiscent of Russia’s traditional behavior with Iran and it caused problems for our country such that Iran stated that despite all the advantages of joint use, the country supports full division of the sea if it can’t receive its share of the sub-basin.

 

Russia’s behavior emboldened Iran’s neighbors to appropriate oil regions close to Iran’s coast. Ultimately, to show its determination in defending national interests, Iran resorted to military threat and flew its jets over fleet that explored for oil and gas in the disputed region, to make everyone understand that it doesn’t have a single doubt in defense of its national interests. This was followed with friendly measures and actually halted any exploration and exploitation in the region that was a part of Iran’s 20% claim of Caspian Sea’s southern sub-basin.

 

Holding Caspian Sea Summit was a significant move that was strongly supported by Iran’s Foreign Ministry. It was believed that the Caspian Summit can bring more agreement between states and pave the way for a solution on Caspian Sea problems. The eternal shared interests of this sea demand regulation of the legal issues that littoral states frequently confront and at any rate leaders of the countries must agree on those issues.

 

But for Iran, the main problem in recent years for holding such a Summit has been the single stance of the country on sub-basin division. For this problem Iran preferred the Caspian Summit to be held when an acceptable solution to the sub-basin division has been found, but because of the en passé that originated from Russia’s avoidance to cooperate with Iran and its bilateral agreements with neighbors, and escalation of disagreements between Iran and Azerbaijan in the Caspian Sea, realization of such progress was unforeseeable in short-term. Foreign Ministry’s assessment was that despite all problems, the advantages of Caspian Summit surpass its disadvantages. For this reason Iran assisted holding the summit, of course assuming that while controlling behavior of other states, it must be aware so that Iranian President’s presence in the Summit may not undermine Iran’s territorial claims on the Caspian’s seabed.

 

In Mehrabad Airport, the plane was ready to carry Mr. Khatami and his delegation to Ashgabat -Turkmenistan’s capital- to attend the first Caspian Summit, but an unexpected event disturbed everything. Iran’s embassy in Turkmenistan reported that in an unusual move, the government of Turkmenistan has covered the conference’s venue with maps of the Caspian Sea that have divided the sea with imaginary lines ad have implicitly allocated a less than 12% share (under the alleged Hosseinqoli-Astara line) for Iran.

 

This was a highly sensitive matter and revealed that as the host country, Turkmenistan aimed to adopt and impose its baseless claims, especially on Iran during the Summit. The story was told for Mr. Khatami and as he asked, it was announced to the government of Turkmenistan that Iran will not attend the Summit if the maps are not taken out of the venue and all similar measures are not denied. Since the Turkmenistan government did not give an acceptable response, Mr. Khatami ordered the Iranian delegation, headed by me as the Deputy Foreign Minister, to let the Turkmens know that if they intend to hold the Summit, they have to change their behavior. At the same time, Turkmenistan’s government was informed that the Iranian delegation is arriving in the country without the Iranian President and even the Foreign Minister. A flight without the Iranian President was taken seriously by Turkmenistan’s President and therefore, in front of Iranian embassy’s officials the maps were torn and thrown away. With a 2-hour delay the Iranian president headed for Ashgabat but beforehand, with his firm stance he had made it clear that he will not compromise on his country’s national interests and will not tolerate opportunism at all. Despite this bitter beginning that was in fact necessary to counter problematic measures, the first Caspian Summit was fruitful and paved new ways to gain rights of Iran in the Caspian Sea.

 

In the first Caspian Sea Summit:

 

1. With its serious confrontation with Turkmenistan on Caspian maps, Iran showed its concerns about the issue at the very first step and showed that it assumes no credibility for a Summit that violates Iran’s rights in the Caspian Sea. By this, Iran managed to institutionalize this important Summit, and at the same time, block the way for a Summit in which other members disagree with it on division of sub-basin resources and disregard its legal territorial claim on its share of sub-basin resources.

 

2. Iran insisted on its right over sub-basin resources, historical treaties of 1921 and 1949 with Russia and Soviet Union, and showed that it places so much importance for the legal character of the Caspian Sea in these documents, as a sea shared between Iran and Soviet Union to gain its rights.

 

3. highly successful negotiations of Mr. Khatami with Heydar Aliyev, President of Azerbaijan, that started during the Summit and ended with more serious negotiations, ended a 10 year period of tensions between the two countries. In a short period, these negotiations led to Aliyev’s visit to Tehran, further negotiations of the two Presidents and start of serious talks on division of the sub-basin. The rapid progress of negotiations with Azerbaijan had even led some to believe that if Heydar Aliyev hadn’t passed away Iran could reach a compromise with Azerbaijan sooner than other countries.

 

In my last meeting with Azerbaijan’s President before his death, Mr. Aliyev remarked that in his idea he could solve the problem with Mr. Khatami, but he thought that the Iranian President was under pressure by the hardliners, and anyway, the Alborz (or Alov as Azeris call it) field lacked any considerable resource of oil or gas. I responded that Iran’s view to sub-basin is beyond energy resources and has become entirely territorial. So none of the Iranian presidents can withdraw from Iran’s 20% share, even if the Alborz energy field in northernmost of Iran’s alleged territory does not have the expected importance,

 

4. Caspian Sea Summit was a starting point for serious expert negotiations on division of Caspian Sea sub-basin. By forming a powerful team that included experts of different organizations and consulting with renowned Iranian and European legal experts, Iran changed the climate on its share in a way that initial claims on Iran’s 11% share was abandoned by all parties and gradually experts’ talks moved towards a 16% to 20% share of the sub-basin for Iran.

 

5. In this Summit Iran was appointed as host of the second Summit. I told my colleagues that the second Summit would be like a double-edged blade. If the talks on sub-basin resources witness a progress up to the second Summit, the Tehran Summit will be a good one; in other case as the host, Iran will have to insist on its rights more than before and at that situation the Tehran Summit may not be regarded as a successful one.

 

As controversies around Putin’s visit to Tehran fade, we see rising concerns over inattention to national interests of Iran on legal regime of the Caspian Sea. It seems that holding the Caspian Sea Summit has stemmed from different tactical interests of Russia and Iran rather that a strategic cause.

 

Apparently Russia, who had proposed the date of the Summit, is concerned about its disagreements with the United States and by arranging Putin’s visit to Iran, this country intended to make a threatening measure and show America that if doesn’t revise its plan to deploy a missile defense shield in Europe, it may approach Iran. Also since Russia’s threat was not supposed to be serious to an extent that would lead to a reciprocal visit of the Iranian President to Russia, this visit seemed a good pretext.

 

Also for Iran who has currently great problems with reciprocal visits of world’s leaders, and at a time when international isolation and sanctions exert increasing pressure on the country, simultaneous visit of 4 presidents and especially the first visit of the Russian President, had such a tactical value that everybody became excited and other issues, such as rights of Iran in the Caspian Sea became marginalized. Despite this deal that was unexpectedly advantageous for Russia, sidelined Americans to some extent, provided Iran with opportunities for domestic and foreign propaganda and on the international level cast doubts over Russia’s unconditional cooperation with the United States to exert pressure on Iran, legal and political pundits viewed this Summit as a step backward in the process of gaining rights of the country in sub-basin resources of Caspian Sea. They believe that in the final document of this Summit, Iran has overemphasized environmental issues, security and terrorism and in fact has completely fulfilled all expectations of Russia, but on the other hand, it has overlooked some issues or compromised over them that will later on put Iran into trouble since they have turned into a procedure in Tehran Summit. Of these shortcomings we can refer to the following:

 

 

Iranian leaders didn’t give any remarks about this cause of difference (division of sub-basin resources) during the Summit. While other countries are following their plans on exploitation of sub-basin resources and haven’t waited to solve their problems with Iran, Iran’s silence on this issue is considered an inactive stance on its most important claim. The approach adopted by Iran in Tehran Summit has prepared the grounds for a procedure that is in fact a retreat from our country’s previous firm stance and will pave the way for following this trend in Summits in other countries.

 

 

3.      One of the most important proofs that Iran has used in its legal claims over the Caspian Sea legal regime is the historical background and two treaties of 1921 with Russia and 1949 with Soviet Union. Our country has always highlighted this historical background and introduced itself as one of the two historical claimants of the sea. Unlike previous cases, in Tehran Summit this point was not taken into consideration.

 

Iranian officials did not insist on this historical background and the official declaration of the Summit which was the first joint document released by leaders of the five countries, this background and the treaties has been ignored. In his speech in the Summit, Kazakhstan’s President remarked that with this Summit, previous treaties on the Caspian have become history and with Iran’s silence this claim was implicitly admitted. Even in media propaganda there were talks about a new approach that has replaced the historical background of this lake.

 

Naturally the newly independent littoral states are not interested in historical background of the Caspian Sea and tend to forget the existence of two historical claimants of this sea. They favor approaches based on decisions of five countries but this can never justify Iran’s retreat and omission of this historical background from the Summit agenda.

 

At least Iran could record its own stance on the historical background and insist on it. It is hardly understandable why such a fault has taken place, while these historical treaties have a substantial legal importance for all undetermined legal disputes of Iran in the Caspian Sea.

 

As mentioned before, the biggest problem with the new procedure of foreign diplomacy in the Caspian Sea is that it has become a routine in Tehran Summit and naturally Iran can not escape it in later summits of the Caspian Sea. From this point of view it can be said that Iran has actually accepted that from now on stances on the legal regime of Caspian Sea and relations of littoral states do not need to refer to the historical background of the sea. Henceforth they could point towards a new structure in which Iran is one of the five members which has differences with others.

 

Unfortunately this change has caused concerns among legal experts more than any other issue. They are worried if Iran’s retreat from the historical background in this Summit and signing of a document that doesn’t refer to historical documents at all, can become a pretext to undermine legal aspects of the historical documents of Iran and Soviet Union and their claims in the sea. They believe that since the outcome of Tehran Summit will become a basis for further decisions, at least for Iran’s claims, our country had to clearly express its stance on the its share from sub-basin resources at any price.

 

What is the reason for all this irresponsibility on such important issues of national interest? It seems that foreign diplomacy handlers have been so serious and excited on bringing Mr. Putin to Tehran and showing that there’s no difference between Iran and Russia that they’ve even forsaken strategic national stances and abandoned the country’s previous firm stances on sub-basin resources and have tried to show sympathy with guests that craved for such a climate.

 

The truth is that such irresponsibility on national interests has roots in a foreign diplomacy that is adventurist, controversial, devoid of from any strategies or criteria, and trapped in propaganda. It is true that if Iran announced its stance, the air of success propagandized for the Summit would become less effective, but this can never be an excuse for our negligence of national interests. However, it seems that there was no big problem and if we really had a strategic –and not tactical- attitude towards this Summit, there existed even a chance that the final document released would become a basis for Iran’s claims in the future, not one for other members whose interests are at odds with Iran’s.

 

It seemed that Putin’s visit to Tehran was so crucial for Russia that even if Iran insisted on its explicit stance over sub-basin resources, the Russian President would come to Tehran at any rate and to show his good ties with Tehran, would permit further flexibility in the final declaration on Iran’s claims over sub-basin of Caspian Sea.