https://arab.news/5t46s
With much of the world’s attention on the Arabian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz, there is another body of water that has become a focal point of the war with Iran: the Caspian Sea. Earlier this month, Israeli fighter jets carried out an audacious and long-range air operation to target Iranian naval vessels and buildings on the Caspian Sea.
The Caspian Sea has long been an important body of water for Iran, especially in terms of its trade and transit connections into the heart of Eurasia and the possibility of oil and gas resources there. During Soviet times, the Caspian was shared between Iran and the Soviet Union, but after 1991, with the emergence of three new littoral states — Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan — the question of which country controls what portion of the sea has remained unsettled.
Azerbaijan and other littoral states prefer control of the Caspian to be decided by the length of each state’s coastline. Meanwhile, Iran, with the shortest Caspian coastline, believes that the body of water should be divided evenly among the five littoral countries.
These strikes are having consequences beyond Iran, creating opportunities for Caspian states and even Ukraine
