Russia seen undermining Caspian Sea solution


	April 26, 2002	atimes.com

Central Asia/Russia

Russia seen undermining Caspian Sea solution
By Sergei Blagov

MOSCOW - There were few hopes of any dramatic breakthrough as Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov played host to the leaders of Russia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Iran and Kazakhstan in the capital Ashgabat on Tuesday and Wednesday. Yet circumstantial evidence indicated that Russia moved closer toward separate deals with northern Caspian littoral states Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan on how to agree on the sea's division.

After heated debates at the summit, the five presidents failed even to sign a joint declaration, let alone solve the dispute over the Caspian. "There were more problems than originally expected," Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev conceded.

Paradoxically, with a backdrop of the clear failure to agree on anything concrete at the Caspian summit, Russian comments still sound upbeat. The general picture "has become more optimistic than it was yesterday", the official Russian Information Agency commented on Wednesday. The summit failed to produce a miracle yet it opened a way out of a stalemate, RIA said. Sources at the Russian delegation told RIA that the dialogue at the summit proved "constructive" and allowed for the launch of a "mechanism" to solve the Caspian Sea problems.

Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that the Caspian solution should be phased. He also suggested the establishment of an inter-governmental center of environmental monitoring. Incidentally, Viktor Kalyuzhny, Russia's special envoy on the Caspian and the Russian deputy foreign minister, said that Russia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan are to to meet next month to clinch a deal on the division of their respective sectors of the Caspian.

Azerbaijan's President Heidar Aliyev had preiviously stated that a separate deal on the Caspian could be reached in June. And upon arriving in Baku, Aliyev described the summit as a "very important event". The issue of the status of the Caspian is not about dividing seabed, it's about the environment and bioresources, Aliyev was quoted as saying by RIA. He also advocated a median-line principle as a basic principle to divide the sea.

The Azeri leader also lashed out at Niyazov, who is known as Turkmenbashi, or "Father of All Turkmens". Niyazov draws the median line as he likes, therefore it caused disputes and the final declaration was not signed, Aliyev was quoted as saying by Interfax.

However, Iranian President Mohammad Khatami described the summit as a successful exchange of views. In response, Putin suggested holding the next Caspian summit in Tehran.

Niyazov has attempted to host summits several times before, most recently last October, but all have been put off because of the remaining differences. Niyazov suggested the formation of a Council of Presidents of the littoral states. On Tuesday, Putin and Niyazov signed a "friendship and cooperation treaty".

However, Niyazov presumably became upset by the news that that Russia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan were to to meet next month to strike their deal. Turkmenistan had previously opposed "the creation of a Caspian 'union' and 'bloc' of one nation against others". Moreover, on Tuesday, a disgruntled Niyazov claimed that "Russia did not have any clear-cut position relative to the Caspian".

"Some countries became unhappy with the draft of the declaration because they failed to amend the document," Putin's foreign policy adviser Sergei Prikhodko was quoted as saying by Interfax. He also strongly disagreed with Niyazov's remarks that the draft was "empty" and not worth of signing.

Even before the littoral states' leaders gathered at the summit in Ashgabat, the Kremlin had warned against "excessive optimism" relative to the ongoing search for a mutually acceptable solution on how to divide the sea's lucrative resources.

The Caspian, the world's largest inland sea, is a focal point of the clash of interests among the five countries. The Caspian, as an inland sea, has never been subject to international maritime laws and its status was regulated by bilateral treaties of 1921 and 1940 between the former Soviet Union and Iran. The Caspian Sea region has been widely viewed as important to world markets because its large oil and gas reserves. Proven oil reserves for the entire Caspian Sea region are estimated at 18 billion to 35 billion barrels. The basin is also believed to hold some 5 trillion cubic meters of natural-gas reserves.

Russia currently controls 19 percent of the Caspian - according to the length of its shore - and also stood to gain from equal division. Kazakhstan (29 percent) and Azerbaijan (21 percent) were against the idea. Russia eventually changed its view and backed Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, which argued for the delineation of the seabed but not the water itself.

Russia believes that the status of the Caspian has already been sufficiently determined by the 1921 and 1940 agreements. According to Russian officials, the water should remain shared, while the seabed needs to be divided on the principle of equal distance or median line, basically according to the length of the shore.

Seeking a larger share of the Caspian, Turkmenistan and Iran have disagreed with Russia's plan for splitting the sea bottom along a "modified median line" while keeping the waters in common. Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan have agreed and now are moving toward clinching separate deals with Russia.

In order to forge a group among the littoral states, Russia has offered a sort of economic carrot. Moscow has indicated that some littoral states - ie, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan - could get more access to Russia's pipeline system. Notably, Russia plans to increase the capacity of the Baku-Novorossiisk oil pipeline to 18 million tons a year, as compared with some 2.5 million tons now. Russia has long lobbied in favor of the CPC (Caspian Pipeline Consortium) pipeline that runs across Russia from the Tengiz field to Novorossisk on Russia's Black Sea coast.

Although in January Niyazov warned that the Caspian summit could only be "an exchange of views", subsequently the Turkmen leader has been keen to hold a successful gathering. On the eve of the summit, Turkmen government sources indicated that Niyazov was going to announce new plans on how to divide the Caspian riches, including problems of bio-resources and navigation. Moreover, Turkmen officials had indicated plans to offer Russia a 10 percent stake in the planned trans-Afghan natural gas pipeline. Judging from the conference's results, Russia, presumably, was not exactly inspired by the Turkmen offer.

Incidentally, after the summit Putin traveled to Russia's Astrakhan region on Wednesday, reportedly for a three-day visit of oil projects and the Caspian Naval Force, Russia's military muscle in the contested sea.

The remaining differences between the littoral states arguably suggest that the actual settlement of the status of the Caspian Sea is still some time off. Moreover, the Kremlin's maneuvers to clinch separate deals with some littoral states could indicate that the Caspian legal limbo is likely to continue well into the future.

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