Baku wants to create an anti-Armenian front in the north of Iran

On the building of the Armenian Ararat football club in the Azeri-populated city of Tabriz in the north of Iran, unknown people have written: “Karabakh is an inseparable part of Azerbaijan.”

In addition, during the game of the Traktorsaz football club, the fans in the stadium chant “Karabakh is ours and will remain ours.” The videos also show some fans pointing their fingers at the symbol of the pan-Turkish group Gray Wolves.

Such pan-Turkish, nationalist and anti-Armenian posts and chants followed RA Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s visit to Iran in East Azerbaijan, the northern Azeri region of Iran.

Such anti-Armenian and pro-Azerbaijani actions should concern Iran’s special services as well, because such actions could not be implemented without serious organizational measures. It can be seen that the special services of Azerbaijan and Turkey are actively operating in the north of Iran, and at their instigation such anti-Armenian calls are being spread with the aim of opening an anti-Armenian front for Armenia from the south as well, across the Araks River.

Separatist, nationalist movements have always been active in Iran: Kurdish, Baloch, Azeri, Arab, etc.

However, in this case, RA and Artsakh should be particularly concerned about Azerbaijani nationalism in the north of Iran, because the East Azerbaijan region of Iran borders RA and Artsakh. This means that Baku and Ankara will try to form anti-Armenian groups here, which can also act against RA-Iran energy-transportation ties and interests, carrying out attacks on Armenian cars, tourists, and in case of war in Karabakh, create a new hotbed of tension from the south of Artsakh, so that Artsakh is surrounded by an Azeri ring from almost all sides.

Let’s not forget that the nationalist circles of Baku have a pan-Azerbaijani, pan-Turkish strategy to create a Greater Azerbaijan, within the framework of which Greater Azerbaijan should be created. It should include today’s borders of Armenia and Artsakh, the regions of Georgia, Borchalu or Kvemo-Kartli inhabited by Azerbaijanis.

Greater Azerbaijan should border Turkey in the future within the framework of Greater Turan strategy.

RA and Iran should counter this by establishing close economic and political ties, and Iran’s special services should be more active in the nationalist, separatist movements of their country.

The southern gates of RA, the border with Iran, are guarded by the border guard troops of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation, thus Yerevan can feel safe from the south as well, saving human resources and concentrating them more on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border and in Artsakh.