Oil fuels Caspian carve-up

Keen to exploit the massive oil deposits found in its segment of the Caspian Sea, Kazakhstan is pushing for an end to the decade-long dispute over how to draw borders between the five countries that share its coastline.

The Soviet Union signed the only existing border agreement with Iran in the 1940s but the treaty didn’t mention how sub-sea resources should be shared or divided up. Then almost overnight in 1991 three new countries – Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan – were created on the shores of the Caspian.