Treason in Kazakhstan
Lies in Tehran
Background
The Caspian Sea, also called the Sea of Mazandaran or the Khazar Sea, is the largest lake in the world, with an area of 376,000 square kilometers. For centuries most of this lake lay within Iranian territory, but with the expansion of Tsarist Russia, more and more of its shores gradually came under Russian control. Then, during the Russo-Persian wars, under the treaties of Golestan (1813) and Turkmenchay (1828), large parts of Iran's territory were severed, so that large sections of the lake's coastline fell within Russian territory, and under Article 5 of the Treaty of Golestan and Article 8 of the Treaty of Turkmenchay, Iran was stripped of the right to navigate this sea. After the fall of the Tsarist state, the communist Soviet government, on 26 February 1921 (7 Esfand 1299), relinquished these articles to Iran, and Chapter Eleven of that treaty permitted navigation under the flag of either country. Later, on 25 March 1940 (5 Farvardin 1319), another treaty was signed between the Imperial State of Iran and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Article 13 of that treaty not only affirmed the right of navigation for both parties but also explicitly stipulated that no other country could navigate this lake. The lake was also named the Iranian-Soviet Sea. In this treaty and in numerous subsequent fishing and trade agreements, the two parties specified that apart from ten miles (16 kilometers) from the coast, designated as an exclusive fishing zone, the rest of the sea was held in common by the two countries, and 50-50 sovereignty over the lake was recognized. Thousands of official maps printed by both countries also show this 50-50 sovereignty, and neither side ever raised any objection.
After the Islamic Revolution in Iran in February 1979 (Bahman 1357), the government of the Islamic Republic assumed all the obligations of the Imperial State of Iran, and no disruption occurred in the continuation of the 1940 treaty and the subsequent agreements. In 1991 the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics collapsed and was divided into several countries. From then on, Iran became a neighbor on this lake to four countries: Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and the Russian Federation. That same year, 1991, in Almaty, then the capital of Kazakhstan, the presidents of these four countries declared in a joint statement that they would observe and respect all treaties of the former Soviet government. But after a while, Azerbaijan and then Kazakhstan, having invited in Western companies, especially American firms, began to find fault with the 1940 treaty and to call for the division of the sea. During these years, in numerous letters to the UN Secretary-General up to 1996 and 1997, Iran consistently insisted on the 1940 treaty and on the sea being held in common. But from those years onward, with Mr. Khamenei's handing down of the "Look East" policy to the Foreign Ministry and the rapprochement with the Russians, Iran's voice of protest grew faint and was finally silenced, and Iran accepted that a new legal regime should be drafted for the Caspian. To date, dozens of expert-level meetings among representatives of these five countries, and several meetings at the level of foreign ministers and heads of state, have been held. The starting point of the trampling of Iran's rights must be considered the first summit of heads of state. This meeting was held on 22 and 23 April 2002 (3 and 4 Ordibehesht 1381) in Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan. In the draft declaration of this summit, Article 7 raised the need to draw up a new legal regime, and Article 12 raised the idea that the surface of the sea would be held in common while the seabed would be divided. At the summit, the position of Mr. Khatami, the president of Iran, was to form four expert commissions and to play for time, so as to evade the division of the sea. But the president of Russia, Mr. Putin, sharply cut him off and declared that such talk was a waste of time and that Russia would solve the problem by concluding bilateral agreements with the other countries. These remarks met with no protest from Iran; the only result was that Mr. Khatami, from sheer nervous strain, came down with back pain and was confined to bed in his residence for 24 hours. Mr. Putin, however, within 24 hours of leaving the meeting, announced in an interview in the port of Astrakhan that the Russian armed forces would hold an exercise in the Caspian Sea on 10 Amordad of that year, in effect backing his words with the Russian army. The next summit was scheduled for the following year (2003, or 1382 in the Iranian calendar), but in practice it was held four years late, on 16 October 2007 (24 Mehr 1386), in Tehran. It has now become clear that Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan had concluded their agreements in Moscow on 10 Azar of the year before that summit, that is, 1380; in effect, together with Russia, they had made their arrangements and then attended the Ashgabat summit and presented Iran with a fait accompli.
Indeed, 20 days after the Ashgabat summit, on 23 Ordibehesht 1381, Russia signed a bilateral protocol with Kazakhstan which, by connecting the endpoints of the two countries' coastlines, in effect gave about 27 percent of the sea to Kazakhstan and about 19 percent to Russia. Then, on 1 Mehr of that same year, 1381, in another agreement between Russia and Azerbaijan, a share of about 18 percent was allotted to Azerbaijan using the same formula, so that these three countries in effect divided 64 percent of the seabed among themselves. But on the water surface, where establishing a boundary would actually be in Iran's favor, the Russians' formula is that the surface is held in common. This means that the warships of Russia and Kazakhstan, the two nuclear powers on this sea, can come right up to Iran's shores and threaten the ports of Anzali, Nowshahr and Bandar Torkaman and all our coastal cities, while Iran, which has only a few small fishing boats on this sea, has no ability to respond in kind. Over these years Russia has done whatever it pleased and has imposed on Iran the formula that is the worst possible for Iran. Mr. Khamenei, for his part, has treacherously reiterated to the government from time to time the need to look East, to side with Russia and to keep away from America. The Foreign Ministry and the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, right up to the recent summit in Kazakhstan (Sunday, 21 Amordad 1397, 12 August 2018), consoled themselves with the fact that they had not signed any document, and occasionally repeated that no foreign power should come to the Caspian Sea—whereas in this period, quite the opposite, we needed the European and American powers in order to force the Russians to show flexibility.
The catastrophe of treason took shape at the Tehran summit. This meeting convened on Tuesday, 16 October 2007 (24 Mehr 1386), in Tehran. Before the meeting, Russia, through a skillful maneuver, had convinced Iran that it would support Iran in the nuclear crisis and would also resolve the issue of the Bushehr power plant. In addition, Russian sources, by floating the story of a plot to assassinate Mr. Putin in Tehran, had kept his trip uncertain until the last moment, in effect selling it to Iran at a high price. And indeed, on the day of the summit Mr. Putin arrived in Tehran an hour late.
At the summit, Mr. Nazarbayev, the president of Kazakhstan, stated explicitly that with the fall of the Soviet Union, that regime's treaties, including the 1940 treaty, had become history. Not a sound came from Mr. Ahmadinejad, the president of Iran, or his delegation. Mr. Aliyev of Azerbaijan likewise stated that his country attached great importance to the bilateral agreements on this sea and respected them. Again the Iranian delegation was silent and raised no objection. Mr. Putin drove the last nail into this coffin, saying that the countries on the southern side of the Caspian (that is, Iran and Turkmenistan) had better learn from the countries of the north (that is, Russia, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan) and solve the problem between themselves. In other words, 64 percent of the seabed had been divided, and these two countries should divide the remaining 36 percent between themselves by some formula, so that even if it were divided equally, Iran's share would be 18 percent—and an 18 percent that does not contain any significant oil and gas reserves at that. Moreover, if the northerners' same formula were applied and the two endpoints of Iran's coastline, the port of Astara and the port of Hasanqoli, were connected, Iran's share would be less than 11 percent and Turkmenistan's 25 percent (the method Turkmenistan favors—in addition to the dispute it also has with Azerbaijan over the middle zone of the sea). Once again, a wall would have made more noise; not a sound came from the Iranian delegation. Even more remarkable, in his speech the president of Iran spoke only of kindness and compassion, of how Iran was a second homeland to them, and of how we must take care that strangers (especially the Americans) do not come in. Meanwhile, these countries would not even allow a sentence against America to be included in the final declaration, as a mere sop to Iran—something Iran had requested. They did write a few pleasantries regarding Iran, no more than what is in the statute of the International Atomic Energy Agency and the NPT—a statement of the obvious. And Mr. Putin, once his donkey had crossed the bridge and he was assured that the heedless puppet Iranian delegation had said nothing and struck no discordant note, responded to Iranian reporters who asked him to promise to get the Bushehr power plant running before he left the Kremlin the following year by saying that as a child he had only ever made promises to his mommy—in effect laughing in Iran's face. As for the story of supporting Iran in an affair with no good end in sight, such as the nuclear and uranium-enrichment saga, he in effect made it conditional on a proposal he put to Iran's Leader.
Thus, through the treacherous conduct of the Iranian delegation at the Tehran summit, carried out on Mr. Khamenei's instructions, and through a silence that in legal practice amounts to tacit approval of the claims of the other heads of state, a process began through which the trampling of Iran's rights in the Caspian Sea took on an institutionalized legal character, until, by the
recent summit held in Kazakhstan on Sunday, 21 Amordad 1397, the sea had in effect been divided and its resources exploited.
Kazakhstan
Paragraph 1 of Article 8 of the document signed on Sunday, 21 Amordad 1397 (12 August 2018) by Mr. Rouhani and the presidents of the four other countries bordering the Sea of Mazandaran states:
"The delimitation of the seabed and subsoil of the Caspian Sea into sectors shall be effected by agreement between states with adjacent and opposite coasts, with due regard to the generally recognized principles and norms of international law, so as to enable those states to exercise their sovereign rights to the subsoil resources and other legitimate economic activities related to the development of the resources of the seabed and subsoil."
This paragraph means that the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran recognizes the division of 64 percent of the sea among the three countries of Russia, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, and accepts in advance any agreement between Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan over the energy fields of the Caspian seabed. What remains is whatever agreement it makes with Turkmenistan over the remaining 34 percent of the Caspian, which in practice lacks any oil and gas resources.
Why treason?
Half of the Caspian, that is, Iran's due, covers 188,000 square kilometers. Even if Turkmenistan were generous and the 20 percent of the sea (which is what Iran is asking for) were allotted to our country, in effect an area of more than 110,000 square kilometers—equivalent to the provinces of Isfahan or Fars, and larger than Khuzestan and the country's other provinces—would have been severed from Iran. Moreover, initial estimates put the oil reserves beneath the Caspian Sea at 200 billion barrels, and American estimates, in the worst case, put these reserves at 178 billion barrels. At the current oil price of $70 a barrel, Iran's 50 percent share of these reserves comes to about 7 trillion dollars—equivalent to more than one hundred and twenty years of Iran's current oil revenue. This is apart from the gas reserves, which are still going through the final stages of exploration. Without a doubt, Mr. Khamenei and his diplomacy in the Islamic Republic have so far dealt a blow to our national interests and territorial integrity that, in Iran's modern history, is not comparable even to the treaties of Turkmenchay and Golestan. For at least the Qajars fought two wars with the Russians and, when they were defeated, submitted to a humiliating treaty; but Mr. Khamenei has committed this treason solely out of dependence on the Russians and in the comforting hope of their support for his own power and that of his son. What makes it catastrophic is that they take the people for fools, and Mr. Rouhani and his Foreign Ministry falsely claim that the sea has not been divided.
What is to be done?
First, since this regime does not represent the people of Iran, the signature of its officials on any document can, in the era after the Islamic Republic, be declared null and void by the Iranian nation and its elected government. This must be announced to all international forums.
Second, the 1940 treaty must continue to be regarded as valid, and since this treaty is silent on the seabed and its resources, the Iranian nation will accept only a formula under which the exclusive right to extract oil and gas resources belongs to a company whose shareholders are these five littoral states, with Iran holding a 50 percent share in that company. Whether the former Soviet Union's 50 percent is divided among four countries or forty is of no concern to Iran.
A word with the members of the Majlis,
Since, under Article 78 of the country's current Constitution, any change to the borders requires the approval of at least four-fifths of the members of the Majlis (parliament), the members of the Majlis must declare their objection to, and the invalidity of, the agreement signed by Rouhani. The Majlis must write an official letter to the government and, if necessary, even bring down the government over it. At this stage it is essential that the Iranian nation insist again and again, so as to put its claim on legal record, on its 50-50 right in the Caspian Sea and on reliance on the treaties previously signed with the Soviet Union. At the same time, using international legal institutions, the oil companies active in the Caspian Sea must be warned that if they invest without obtaining the consent of the Iranian nation, they will face lawsuits worth billions of dollars from the next, popular government.
Dust upon my head! If in grief I heap dust upon my head,
When the soil of the homeland is gone, what soil is left to heap upon my head?
Mirzadeh Eshghi
Mohsen Sazegara
22 Amordad 1397