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Trouble over the Caspian Sea
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| 10 September 2001 |
It looked harmless enough, but not to the Iranians. On July 23rd an Iranian warship, supported by aircraft, challenged and threatened to bombard an Azeri survey vessel in a disputed part of the Caspian Sea. The unarmed vessel, chartered by an international consortium surveying a newly found oil deposit, sailed back to Baku, Azerbaijan's capital, hastily.
The stakes are high in this most recent episode in the 'great game' for power and influence, oil and gas, and above all money, billions of dollars of it, beneath the Caspian. This is why Russia, another of the five countries bordering on the Caspian, is building up a naval force for the inland sea.
The oilfields concerned are valued at about $9 billion at present prices and are situated well north of Baku and within the waters reserved to Azerbaijan, according to Azeris, but also within the zone claimed by Iran.
Sea borders between the coastal states have been disputed ever since the break up of the Soviet Union ten years ago. However, Iran insists that the situation has changed entirely with the emergence of new countries around the Caspian and that the sea should be divided among all coastal states in equal parts, each having sovereign rights over 20% of the waters and their bottom.
Iran made clear that it would not tolerate any petroleum or gas operations in what the Islamic Republic regards as its preserve. However, the July incident was the first in which Iran actually came close to military action.
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