I was about to react as well. To begin with, Entekhab, a typical reformist and thereby strongly russophobic and US-apologetic newspaper does not exactly inspire confidence now does it...? Then, who is the person from the "CNG Union Association" and what is that body supposed to represent exactly? Absent a statement by the administration, any background information on that gentleman, political affiliations etc? Because it'd run counter to 42 years of ingrained IR practice to compromise sovereign rights in any shape or form. If put under tremendous adverse pressure by powerful hostile entities, the IR would at worst settle for some give and take sort of agreement. Now of course if liberals are in charge, they'd be willing to sell the country out, but thank goodness these types are being steadily kept in check by IRGC and Leadership. Next point, what territorial waters is the source referring to? Those parts which Iran claimed sovereignty upon, but recognition of which was unanimously rejected by the other four littoral states of the Caspian? Or the token portion which everybody agrees should belong to Iran? I do suspect some disingenuous wordplay at this point. So until we see a proper, precise an exhaustive clarification from an authoritative source, this is not to be taken seriously in my opinion. What is more, how childish is the consideration that Russia would be overly bent on prohibiting Iran to exploit its Caspian reserves, only to come out on top in terms "exploitable" gas reserves in international statistics, knowing that we're talking about a mere 0.3% of global reserves here...? And knowing that common statistics generally refer to overall reserves, not to effectively exploited gas fields. So this reasoning sounds quite nonsensical. Last but not least, what does the source mean by "ghablan" - under the Rohani administration perhaps?!
All this said, even if the reporting were flawlessly factual (which it most probably isn't), to even envisage comparing the most independent government in the world that is the Islamic Republic with a classic vassal state ie the shah regime in terms of the extent of exercized sovereignty and protection of Iran's interests against predatory imperial agendas is baseless. The extreme majority of Iran's natural gas reserves are located in the Persian Gulf, and Iran is doing whatever it wishes with them. Same goes for the oil. There's strictly no comparison with pre-Revolutionary conditions, for although these resources remained nationalized property of Iran back in the day, it was foreign corporations which were endowed with exclusive distribution rights. Let us not even get into more disturbing and telling aspects, such as that any token financial assistance the shah wished to grant to the Palestinian Resistance or to non-zionist Lebanese groups, he had to inform his Court Minister 'Alam in the bathroom - literally - of his palace, because his entire dwellings had been sprinkled with listening devices by the intelligence services of his foreign patrons, as clearly mentioned in 'Alam's memoirs... and this is while the Court Minister in question was widely considered to be on British payroll himself! Oh, and it was not some spies acting in a contrarian and fully covert manner which had planted said devices into the shah's palatial premises, but this was done with de facto approval of the country's head of state who was glad to be acting as a chief client and regional enforcer for these same extra-regional imperial powers. The capitulation treaty, which legally enabled US citizens to murder Iranian men, women, children, elderly and even newborns without having to fear even the slightest prosecution at the hands of the Iranian judiciary, is probably best not delved into, as this would be too painful a reminder to expand upon I believe. So I'd say fervent personal dislike for the Islamic Republic ought never push one to regress to reformist media and/or foreign mouthpiece levels of historic and factual extrapolation.
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First the author of the article would need to explain what it is they're talking about and what administration is supposed to have reached such an agreement with Russia. If it's Rohani's, then both it and the Khatami cabinet were liberal ones.
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