Convention on Legal Status of Caspian Sea fails to remove marine contradictions for Baku

The signing of the Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea in general meets Azerbaijani interests. However, the document has failed to remove all the sea contradictions, the Azerbaijani experts interviewed by the "Caucasian Knot" believe.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on August 12, at the fifth Caspian summit, the presidents of Russia, Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan signed a convention on the legal status of the Caspian Sea. After the signing of the document, the main area of the Caspian Sea will remain in common use, while the sea floor and subsoil will be divided among the countries.

According to Rasim Musabekov, a political analyst and a member of the Azerbaijani Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Relations, the signed Convention fails to solve all the problems, but has created a legal basis for settling thereof.

Mr Musabekov told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent that this legal basis was drafted in the form proposed by Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Russia. In their turn, Turkmenistan and Iran stuck to opposing positions that were contrary to the approaches of Azerbaijan.

In his opinion, the definition of the legal basis was very important for Azerbaijan, since the preservation of tensions at sea did not meet Baku's interests.

However, in the opinion of Nazim Beidemirli, an independent expert and a former Azerbaijani MP, Russia is the main beneficiary of the signed Convention.

"Everything has turned out as Russia wanted. Russia has achieved the preservation of naval fleets in the Caspian Sea and the fixation of non-presence of any extra-regional forces there; that is, the Convention preserves and strengthens the Russia's hegemony in the Caspian Sea," Mr Beidemirli told the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent.

On the other hand, he continued, Russia, having solved with its neighbours the issue of delimitation of the seabed and the entrails of the Caspian Sea, failed to support this principle in the southern part of the sea. "For Azerbaijan, the delimitation issue is still open; and a complex process of coordinating it with Iran and Turkmenistan is to be undertaken," the expert believes.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on August 14, 2018 at 08:58 am MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.