🔻The heads of five Caspian Sea coastal countries met in August 2018 in Aktau, Kazakhstan, to sign the convention on the legal status of this body of water after more than two decades of negotiations. Before the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Iran and the Soviet Union were the only coastal countries of the Caspian Sea, and their relations were governed by bilateral agreements. The independence of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan increased the number of coastal countries to five and created the need for a new legal framework. Iran is the only signatory country that has still not ratified the convention, and for this reason the document is not officially in force. The Masoud Pezeshkian government has recently sent the bill related to the convention to the parliament with the stipulation of urgency; a move that has once again revived concerns about the effects of this document on Iran’s rights and interests in the Caspian Sea.