Asharq Alawsat (The Middle East)
April 5, 2013 Friday
The Art of Turning Neighbors into Enemies
By all accounts Azerbaijan should be Iran’s closest ally.
The tiny republic on the Caspian Sea is home to nine million people
with strong ethnic, historic, and religious ties to the Iranian
people. Almost 80 percent speak Azeri, an Altaic language with a
vocabulary drawn from Turkish, Persian, and Arabic. Around 12 million
people in five Iranian provinces speak a version of the language.
Azerbaijan also contains Kurdish, Gushtasbi-Talysh, Tat, and Lezgin
minorities; ethnic groups with kith and kin in Iran (ethnic and
linguistic minorities account for 22 percent of Azerbaijan’s
population).
Known as Aran, Shiravan and Nakhjivan, the areas that actually form
Azerbaijan were part of the Iranian heartland for more than 25
centuries. Iran lost them in two disastrous wars with Tsarist Russia
which was pursuing its dream of reaching warm waters through Iran.
With treaties imposed on the Qajar Shahs in 1824 and 1830 Iran ceded
the areas to the Tsars.
When the Tsarist Empire collapsed following the 1917-1918 Russian
Revolution, these areas came together to form an independent state.
The experiment lasted two years before Lenin sent an army of to
reassert Russian domination. Next, Josef Stalin, acting as Commissar
for Nationalities, transformed the territories into a new unit named
Azerbaijan, establishing it as an autonomous republic within the USSR.
The fall of the Soviet Empire in 1991 gave the people of Azerbaijan a
chance to regain their independence.
Due to these events, large numbers fled from the affected territories,
seeking refuge in Iran. Today there are millions of Iranians whose
ancestors fled the Tsarists and the Bolsheviks. The flow of refugees
to Iran from Azerbaijan continued for decades, albeit with varying
intensity. In the 1990s as Armenia invaded and annexed
Nagorno-Karabakh, half a million people fled from Azerbaijan to Iran.
With Shi’ite Muslims representing some 85 percent of the population,
Azerbaijan also shares strong religious ties with Iran.
Linguistically, the Kurdish, Tat, and Gushtasbi-Talysh minorities
belong to the family of Iranic languages. (Iran’s Zoroastrian “holy”
book Avesta was originally written in the Gushtasbi-Talysh language.)
Thus, relations between Azerbaijan and Iran should be at least correct
if not cordial. And, yet, the opposite is the case.
Last week, Iran recalled its ambassador from Baku, capital of
Azerbaijan, and closed border passages.
The move came after Azerbaijan arrested 41 people on charges of
espionage for Iran. Azerbaijani journalist Anar Bayramli, who worked
for Iranian media, was also arrested.
As the drama unfolded, two Azerbaijani writers Farid Hussein and
Shahriar Haji-Zadeh disappeared in Iran, presumably seized as
hostages.
Last week, Tehran’s anger rose when Baku hosted a conference on “The
Future of Southern Azerbaijan”. This was a gathering of militants,
mostly US citizens of Iranian origin, who regard all the various
peoples who speak versions of the Azeri language as Turks. It is not
quite clear what they mean by “South Azerbaijan”. But one must assume
that they want Azerbaijan to merge with the five Iranian provinces
where Azeri is widely spoken to form a single new nation of 22 million
people.
Tehran sees the move as a plot hatched by the United States, Israel,
and Turkey against Iran’s territorial integrity.
However, the “unification” plan would mean the disappearance of the
Republic of Azerbaijan in its present shape. In a “greater” Azerbaijan
the people of the republic would become a minority.
Not surprisingly, on Wednesday the daily Kayhan, reflecting the views
of “Supreme Guide” Ali Khamenei called for the “return” of Azerbaijan
to Iran. It suggested that a referendum be held under international
auspices on the subject, giving the people of Azerbaijan the choice of
“returning to their Iranian homeland.”
Hosting secessionists is not the only reason for Tehran’s anger.
Azerbaijan has close ties with Israel including a USD 1.6 billion
contract to purchase arms from the Jewish state. Tehran media claim
that Azerbaijan would give Israel bases to bomb Iran’s nuclear sites.
Iran also regards Azerbaijan’s ties wit Turkey, a member of NATO, as a
potential threat in case of a military clash with the United States.
To add to Tehran’s anger, Azerbaijan has sided with Russia over
dividing the resources of the Caspian Sea including oil and gas and
caviar-bearing fish reserves.
Iran wants the Caspian to be declared an inland sea jointly owned by
its five littoral states. Under that scheme, Iran’s share would be 20
percent. Russia and Kazakhstan want the sea divided according to the
length of each littoral state’s shoreline. Under this scheme, Iran
would end up with 11 percent. At first equivocating on the issue,
Azerbaijan now tilts towards the Russian position while Turkmenistan,
the fifth littoral state, is hedging its bet.
Azerbaijan, too, has complaints against Iran.
The Islamic Republic supports Christian Armenia in its conflict with
Azerbaijan. Without support from Iran, landlocked Armenia would not
have been able to annex Nagorno-Karabakh. It is clear that as long as
Iran backs Armenia, Azerbaijan will not be able to recapture its lost
territories.
Baku has another complaint.
Iran’s ruling mullahs try to incite Azerbaijan’s Gushtasbi-Talysh
minority against the Azeri majority despite the fact that the majority
of the Gushtasbi-Talysh are Sunni Muslims. Baku also accuses Tehran of
trying to foment nationalism among Kurdish, Tat and Lezgins in
Azerbaijan.
Tehran’s mishandling of relations with Azerbaijan is a classic example
of how ideological blindness could turn a nation’s potentially closest
neighbor into an enemy.
Blinded by its anti-Americanism, the Khomeinist regime not only
ignores deep-rooted cultural and historical ties but has also set
aside Islamic or even Shi’ite sensibilities in shaping relations with
Azerbaijan.
Instead of the current tension, under a normal regime Iran would have
been able to draw Azerbaijan close to its ancestral cultural and
historic homeland by opening the borders, merging markets, and
allowing maximum contact between populations on both sides of the Aras
River.
Sadly, however, tension with Azerbaijan need not be surprising. Today,
Iran’s relations with all its neighbors are marked by varying degrees
of mistrust and hostility. A sad story, all round.
From: A. Papazian