About Caspian economic organisation

Recently Russia has been very actively promoting its initiative to create a Caspian economic organisation. Moscow thinks that such a body will further facilitate the coming together of the region's countries to protect their foreign policy interests. Therefore the creation of this organisation will be the start of a new Russian attack on US and Western interests in the South Caucasus and Central Asia, as The Kremlin considers recent US policy initiatives in Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan a threat to its influence and interests in the region.

Russia wants to create such unity in order to remain the arbiter in determining the legal status of the Caspian Sea and its borders. This is an acute issue, not easy to resolve, as Iran is demanding an equal share of the Sea. During Soviet times most of the Caspian belonged to the Soviet empire, Iran having only a small portion, but now Iran is demanding parity.

Moscow is against any project to lay pipes on the bed of the Caspian Sea to pump more oil from Central Asia towards Azerbaijan and then Europe. Russia wants all energy pipelines to run through its territory, thus securing its monopoly and supplying Europe with energy. Consequently there are very many issues and different players involved in this sophisticated game.