The Geopolitics of Energy in the Caspian Basin

Abstract

After the Soviet Union fragmentation, the attentions of regional and international countries have turned to this region for oil and gas discovery in the Caspian Basin. After that, this region enjoys more geopolitical importance increasingly. Therefore, the main question is:" what factors can influence the new geopolitics of the Caspian basin?" It seems that, some issues such as the lack of a legal status of the Caspian Sea, the pipeline routes for transportation of energy to the world markets and the ecological and environmental issues arising from hydrocarbon resources make the Geopolitical issues of the Caspian basin more complicated. The purpose of presenting this paper is to explain the new geopolitics of the Caspian and different position of each littoral states and international countries regarding as how to use the new hydrocarbon resources of the basin. According to the research findings, each of mentioned countries follows their own national interests in the Caspian basin.