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2.4 Caspian Sea states agree several documents, Iran says
Hopes have risen that the long running saga over the ownership of various parts of the Caspian Sea may be moving in the direction of a conclusion with several draft documents on fishing and access rights agreed at a meeting in Almaty on May 25, Islamic Republic News Agency reported.
Iran has previously rejected a draft agreement on the ownership of parts of the inland sea which all surrounding countries have staked claims to since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Recent years have seen the countries surrounding the body of water even argue on points over whether it is a lake or a sea.
The51s t meetingofthespecialworkinggrouponpreparingthelegalstatusof the Caspian Sea further examined several issues including who has the rights to explore for oil in certain parts of the sea and which countries have the rights to use the sea as a transit route for oil and gas shipments.
Last December 13, Eurasianet cited comments by Sergey Lavrov , the Russian foreign affairs minister, that indicated that Russia, Kazakhstan, Iran, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan were at long last on the verge of a Caspian Sea agreement. After Lavrov's statements, Iran refuted the idea it had agreed to any kind of final settlement in a statement by the country’s Iranian Foreign Ministry.
The rich oil and gas reserves under the sea have meant that the arguments over where exactly the maritime borders should be demarcated have remained tough to solve.
2.5 Rouhani determine that Guard will not obtain markets left by sanctions-hit foreign investors
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has made an indirect jab at the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), warning that if foreign firms withdraw from the Iranian market under threat of US sanctions , Iranian companies linked to institutions will not be given carte blanche to take over their markets, Tasnim News Agency reported on May 28.
Speaking at an Iftar ceremony celebrating the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, the pragmatic-centrist president made it clear that IRGC-affiliated enterprises such as construction company Khatam al-Anbia would not automatically be given rights to develop more projects in the country. He reportedly said: “Unfortunately, some people inside the country are happy when foreign firms cannot invest in Iran and think that they will replace outgoing firms. But we should be careful not make the mistakes made in 2011 and 2012."
Holdings owned by IRGC-linked entities—which range across the construction, energy, banking, insurance, telecommunications and other sectors—essentially make the Guard an economic powerhouse. Analysts attribute somewhere between one and two-thirds of GDP to associates of the IRGC. In late January, the IRGC and other branches of the military were
8 IRAN Country Report June 2018 www.intellinews.com