Iran announces upcoming joint naval drill in Caspian Sea
Iran said on Tuesday it would soon stage a joint naval exercise in the Caspian Sea with the other four littoral states, saying the sea was off-limits to outside powers.
Iran said on Tuesday it would soon stage a joint naval exercise in the Caspian Sea with the other four littoral states, saying the sea was off-limits to outside powers.
“The Caspian Sea belongs only to its five coastal states – Iran, Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan – and they will resolve related issues themselves,” navy commander Shahram Irani said at a gathering of naval chiefs in St. Petersburg.
Irani said the littoral states had developed “very good relations” in security, economic and environmental fields and had the capability to ensure stability without foreign involvement. “There is no place in the Caspian Sea for extra-regional powers,” he said.
He said a recent joint exercise in Iran’s Bandar Anzali and along the southern Caspian coast had strengthened cooperation, and that another drill would be held soon.
Iran maintains two distinct naval forces. The army navy, commanded by Irani, operates in the Gulf of Oman, the Indian Ocean, and the Caspian Sea, while the Revolutionary Guard navy controls the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz.
In August, Iran’s army navy fired a range of anti-ship cruise missiles in large-scale exercises in the Gulf of Oman and northern Indian Ocean, following a separate Iran-Russia drill in the Caspian a month earlier. Officials said the systems were radar-evading and high-precision, and warned that any new conflict with Israel would bring a stronger response from Tehran.
The Caspian Sea, bordered only by the five littoral states, has long been treated by Tehran and Moscow as off-limits to foreign militaries.
