The dispute blocking Nabucco

 This dispute is over the ownership of three oil and gas fields in the Caspian Sea. Turkmenistan calls these fields Omar, Osman and Serdar, while Azerbaijan calls them Azeri, Chirag and Kepez. These fields hold an estimated 620 million tons of oil reserves. Serdar/Kepez holds about 50 million tons. The amount of natural gas in or around these fields is not known, but it is believed to be high.

Emerging after the collapse of the Soviet Union, this dispute has soured relations between the two countries for about a decade. But over the last two years, representatives of the two countries, supported by EU and US officials, had been having regular meetings, the last of which was held in Baku on July 16-17, to resolve the dispute. However, as with the previous ones, this meeting failed to resolve the dispute, but still hopes were kept alive that eventually the sides would find a way to move forward.

However, as stated in an article by Bruce Pannier titled "Flare-Up in Turkmen-Azerbaijani Dispute Latest Nabucco Challenge" in the July 27, 2009 edition of Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty: "Those hopes were dashed on July 24 when Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov cited a report from Deputy Foreign Minister Toyly Komekov during a cabinet meeting.

“Berdymukhammedov said the report showed that the impasse over the demarcation of the Caspian seabed between the two countries has remained unresolved ‘due to Azerbaijan's specific position. The main reason behind this situation is that there are mineral deposits located exactly in the disputed areas of the Caspian Sea. Azerbaijan claims ownership of these deposits, including the deposit known as Promezhutochnoyee during the Soviet era and which we now call our Serdar deposit'.”  

The president “went on to mention the Omar and Osman fields, which he said Azerbaijan is already exploring but which, he claimed, ‘belong to us'.” He “expressed regret that 16 bilateral meetings had not resolved the issue” and then stated his desire to probe the legality of foreign energy companies' participation in the mentioned fields' development and lastly “instructed Foreign Minister Rashid Meredov to take the issue” to an international arbitration court.

Well, it was not clear which arbitration court Berdymukhammedov was referring to since there are several, most run by chambers of commerce and whichever one it was, it will not have any enforcement powers or mechanism. Apart from this, it is a well-known fact that arbitration courts of the kind Berdymukhammedov was referring to deal with economic and commercial disputes only. Therefore, if the dispute in question is not deemed economic or commercial but rather territorial in nature, then it should be taken to a different court.

In this regard, there is only one court in the world that resolves territorial disputes between states, and it is the United Nations' International Court of Justice in The Hague. So in view of this fact, Turkmenistan has to appeal to that court. However, neither Turkmenistan nor Azerbaijan accepts the court's jurisdiction. Even if Turkmenistan unilaterally recognized the jurisdiction of the court, its appeal can't be examined without Azerbaijan's approval.

In the end if both sides accept arbitration somehow, then a long legal process will follow, and it could take years for it to come to a conclusion. In the meantime, the Nabucco project will suffer and may not be realized. So one independent party should arbitrate between the sides and try to resolve the dispute for the benefit of Nabucco. And this party is none other than Turkey, which has excellent relations with the two disputing sides and enjoys the trust of both Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan fully.