Lake or Sea - this is the salt

Finally defined the legal status of the Caspian

The heads of five Caspian states - Russia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan - signed a document on the legal status of the world's largest lake after 22 years of negotiations.

The Caspian Sea is a region that, after the collapse of the USSR, was doomed to a section between four newly formed coastal states (Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan) and Iran, which had previously dealt with the Unified Soviet Union. Disputes about the status of the Caspian began in 1992, work on the Convention on the legal status of the water area has been conducted since 1996. The main issue, which finally managed to solve, was how to divide a non -standard reservoir - like a lake or like a sea.

Iran - the only participants in the negotiations insisted on dividing the Caspian equally by sectors (Lake principle) - then Tehran could count on 20% of the Caspian. When dividing on the marine principle (each state gets several tens of kilometers of the coastal zone, everything else - the total) Iran received a plot twice less - about 10%.

According to the signed convention, after its ratification, the main area of ​​the water surface of the Caspian is divided by the marine principle and remains in the general use of the parties, while the states will have to establish their territorial waters no wider than 15 naval miles from the original lines. The bottom and bowels will be divided into coastal states into sites - this is how the lakes are divided by international law.

As the Novaya Gazeta expert Arkady Dubnov told Novaya Gazeta, the signing of the Convention was possible only after Russia agreed to neglect the veto to lay the gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to Azerbaijan, and Iran stopped insisting on the Caspian section into five equal parts, which did not suit the rest of the Caspian partners.

“Russia objected to the gas pipeline for many years, as its construction was damaged by Gazprom in Europe. Now Russia agreed to partially abandon the veto in exchange for the fact that all countries of the Caspian region have confirmed the ban on the deployment of foreign military presence in this region, the United States and NATO countries are implied here. This agreement was also important to Iran, ”Dubnov explained.

In addition, the expert added, Russia reserved the right to freely operate with the Caspian mirror - the water surface, with the exception of territorial and fishing zones for the work of the main striking force of Russia - the Caspian flotilla.

Dubnov also noted that when resolving the next issue - the section of the bottom of the reservoir, Iran will have a paramount influence, which today, as in Soviet times, controls the smallest Kaspian water area.