Kazakhstan Sees Benefit in Caspian Dialogue

Kazakhstan has long sought to balance its own agenda with a desire to please Russia, and a May 7 Foreign Ministry statement regarding the Caspian Sea reflects that balance. Less than a month after Kazakhstan, Russia and the other three countries bordering the Caspian left a two-day summit without any agreement on how to share the sea's resources, Kazakhstan has promised to sign a bilateral deal with Russia in a matter of days. Platt's, a trade magazine for the energy industry, quoted Adil Abishyev, Foreign Minister Kasymzhomart Tokayev's spokesman, as saying that the two countries would sign a "protocol" dividing their claims to Caspian oilfields between May 12 and 15.

This quick reconciliation complicates some of the pessimistic comments that dominated analyses of the Caspian summit. [For further information see the EurasiaNet Business and Economics archive]. It also shows that while Iran and Turkmenistan continue to press for arrangements that Russia clearly does not want, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan remain willing to accommodate Russian interests. This outcome could affect the developments and politico-military trends in the region as a whole and at the level of individual countries. Analyses of likely legacies of the summit must consider not only the acrimony that made the April summit fail, but the alliances that can grow out of it.

As the Kazakhstani announcement shows, the summit's failure is not necessarily the end of the negotiation process. Analysts had known before the announcement that constructive dialogue and creative diplomacy could pave the way for new delimitation agreements. It remains conceivable that Azerbaijan could forge new bilateral or trilateral deals. Arrangements like these, rather than five-party treaties, could end up leading to a long-term rule by which countries share the sea's surface and underwater resources.

Iran's intransigence and Turkmenistan's unpredictable statements (President Saparmyrat Niyazow commented at the end of the summit that "the Caspian smells of blood") might suggest a likely stalemate. But it is important to recognize that the former Soviet states, unlike countries in other disputed regions, frequently realize value from a slow, but ongoing negotiation process. Many states disputing commonly claimed resources refuse to even negotiate. The Caspian states, by contrast, left the failed summit with talk of holding a follow-up gathering in 2003, which Kazakhstan offered to host. (Russian President Vladimir Putin appears more interested in gathering in Tehran.) Kazakhstan's forecast deal with Russia would give the Kazakhstanis control of a shelf called Kurmengazi that oil companies have long coveted. It would also fix a set of questions ahead of future talks.

As this deal indicates, talks can make states' behavior more predictable than uncoordinated activity can. In the April summit, each state heard the others' position and the limits of what they could offer or give up. Finding this information without formal talks can be costly and unreliable – especially in a region where misgivings can lead to military maneuvers. Collective gains from coordination and cooperation that flow from talks could outweigh the narrow and short-term benefits of hostility and conflict. This will seem even more irrefutable if Azerbaijan reaches a deal with Russia this summer, as some observers have predicted it might. Even if that agreement stalls, Azerbaijan will still be better off for pursuing dialogue than it would be by abandoning it.

Despite Niyazov's remark and lingering resentment over a July 2001 skirmish between Azerbaijani explorer ships and the Iranian navy [for more information see EurasiaNet's Business and Economics archive], one should remember that military issues still do not rank at the top of any country's Caspian agenda. The failure of the summit threatens to add momentum to efforts to enforce littoral stakes through military means; Putin, during a visit to its base in Astrakhan two days after the Caspian summit, has already called for military exercises by the Caspian Flotilla this summer. Indeed, Moscow endorses the idea of jointly using the sea's surface to let its ships navigate with relative impunity.

Iran's press responded to Putin's moves with bluster of its own, decrying Putin's "threatening tone" and warning that the United States was trying to manipulate the littoral states into infighting. Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan are trying to form and strengthen their navies, and some have already received limited aid from the United States and elsewhere. As long as talks remain active, Iran may be able to remind Putin's team of what Russia could lose if the United States expands its presence in the Caspian; this tactic may cool future hostilities.

Ongoing dialogue can also prevent the sea's division from fueling nationalist passions in Iran. Tense and heated sessions were held in the Iranian parliament in the run-up to the last summit meeting. Emotions rise high in Iran about Tehran's share of the Caspian Sea due to intense media coverage, and the issue is increasingly uniting Iranian radicals and reformists. A senior cleric thanked President Khatami in a rare show of solidarity during a Friday prayers' speech following the summit for his "persistence in defending the rights of the Iranian people in the Caspian Sea." The various political and religious actors within Iran would inevitably affect foreign policy decision-making, and Iranian media already play a considerable role in shaping the public opinion on this issue. Ongoing talks can help defuse political tensions.

Those tensions figure to linger, because laws governing the Caspian will have limited relevance to the way countries actually explore it. If sides continue to talk, though, they may collectively affirm that the gap between laws and practice is costing each state in expected energy revenues and could harm interstate relations more generally.

Talks also have the benefit of flexibility. Future talks could gather negotiators into issue-based alliances; Iran, for example, could team up with Turkmenistan on delimitation issues but with Kazakhstan on energy transport issues and with Russia on the issue of sharing and selling military technology. Such discussions, if properly managed, could increase pressure on each side to search for a comprehensive settlement. Engaging in negotiations and reaching agreements would also open the potential of energy fields such as Kashagan and Shah Deniz.

Kazakhstan and Russia, long kindred states, may have had an easier time reaching a protocol than other littoral nations would. In the end, though, talks may reinforce the idea that Caspian riches offer enough for everyone to justify each state's investing diplomatic capital in a mutually beneficial cooperation framework. Even though the recent summit failed, a policy that emphasizes negotiation and dialogue seems likely to correlate with success.