The Islamic Republic of Iran is in favor of a unanimous agreement on the legal regime of the Caspian Sea and considers other agreements to be null and void.

At the end of a meeting of representatives of Caspian Sea littoral states in Almaty, Kazahkstan, Iran's special envoy for Caspian Sea affairs, Mahdi Safari, said a recent agreement reached between Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Russia was invalid.

The trilateral agreement was mainly about how to divide the seabed before starting oil and gas prospecting in order to determine the ownership and manner of exploitation of the sea's oil and gas fields. It says the Caspian Sea should be divided according to the length of the coastline of each littoral state.

Political analysts told that due to the Caspian Sea's geographical features, such a division of the sea would violate the 1921 and 1940 treaties between Iran and the Soviet Union as well as international law. Since it is an inland sea, they maintain that any decision on dividing the Caspian Sea must be based on the consensus of its littoral states.

Because of the proximity of the states, the manner of exploitation of the sea's resources by each country affects the other littoral states' ecosystems and interests. Ecological problems such as pollution have caused a serious decline in the sea's fish stocks.

Tehran follows the policy of joint exploitation of the sea's recourses based on the effective agreements reached between Iran and the former Soviet Union, which are still applicable according to international law. Free shipping, the non-military nature of the sea, protection of the environment, and coordination on the exploitation of the Caspian Sea's oil and gas fields are among the subjects included in the legal convention of the sea.

Formulating a new Caspian Sea legal regime will only be possible if the littoral states sincerely cooperate with one another. Any agreement reached without observing the rights of all littoral states is illegal and complicates the path to determining the sea's legal regime.