Azerbaijan–Iran relations

Iran-Azerbaijan relations

Iran	Azerbaijan

|

|

|}

Iran and the Republic of Azerbaijan have had relations since 1918.

Context

See also: History of Azerbaijan

The territory of the present day Republic of Azerbaijan has historically been a part of Iran, specifically during the Achaemenid, Parthian, Sassanid, Safavid, and Qajar periods. The South Caucasus in general has been highly influenced by Iranian culture for thousands of years . Much of the Caucasus was conquered from Iran by Russia during the 19th century, with the treaties of Gulistan and Turkmenchay. Due to historical and cultural ties, the Republic of Azerbaijan is considered a part of Greater Iran . Iran and Azerbaijan are also both majority Shia.

According to Encyclopaedia Iranica, "Although throughout history the Caucasus has usually been incorporated in political entities belonging to the Iranian world, at the beginning of the 13th/19th century Russia took it, along with the Transcaucasus, from the Qajars (1133-1342/1779-1924), severing those historical ties. Since the establishment of Soviet power on Caucasian territory, relations with Persia have been reduced to an insignificant level."

Relations from 1918-1920

The Republic of Azerbaijan was initially founded in 1918 as the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic. With the collapse of Tsarist Russia in 1917, the Musavat Party met in Tbilisi on May 28, 1918 and proclaimed independence of their country with the name Azerbaijan Democratic Republic. The decision to use the name Azerbaijan, drew some protests from Iran. According to Tadeusz Swietochowski:

Although the proclamation restricted its claim to the territory north of the Araxes, the use of the name Azerbaijan would soon bring objections from Iran. In Teheran, suspicions were aroused that the Republic of Azerbaijan served as an Ottoman device for detaching the Tabriz province from Iran. Likewise, the national revolutionary Jangali movement in Gilan, while welcoming the independence of every Muslim land as a "source of joy," asked in its newspaper if the choice of the name Azerbaijan implied the new republic's desire to join Iran. If so, they said, it should be stated clearly, otherwise Iranians would be opposed to calling that republic Azerbaijan. Consequently, to allay Iranian fears, the Azerbaijani government would accommodatingly use the term Caucasian Azerbaijan in its documents for circulation abroad.

Nevertheless, in 1919, Qajar Iran and Azerbaijan Democratic Republic did have some exchanges at governmental level. On 16th of July, 1919, the Council of Ministers [of ADR] appointed Adil Khan Ziatkhan, who had up to that time served as Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs, diplomatic representative of Azerbaijan to the court of the Persian King of Kings . A Persian delegation headed by Seyed Ziaed-Din Tabatai came to Baku, to negotiate transit, tarriff, mail, customs, and other such agreements. Speeches were made in which the common bonds between Caucasian Azerbaijan and Iran were stressed .

In 1920, the Bolshevik 11th Red Army conquered the Caucasus and the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic became Azerbaijan SSR. In 1922, Azerbaijan SSR was incorporated into the Soviet Union, and from that point till 1991, the relations between Iran and Azerbaijan continued in the context of the Soviet-Iranian relations. However after World War II, the Azerbaijani Ministry of Foreign Affairs could issue limited visas for travel to Iran only and Iran also maintained a consulate in Baku .

Relations from 1991 to present

File:195307 orig.jpg

A 5th grade history book from Azerbaijan entitled "Fatherland" shows the approximate territory of Shirvanshah, Jalayirid and Qara Qoyunlu states in Azerbaijan.

Relations between Iran and the newly independent Republic of Azerbaijan did not get off to a good start. The president of Azerbaijan at the time, Abulfaz Elcibey, endorsed the unification of the Azerbaijani populations of his country and Iranian Azerbaijan and, to that end, autonomy for the Iranian Azerbaijanis, a stance which alienated the Iranian government.

According to Svante Cornell:

As the leader of Azerbaijani Popular Front (APF), the historian Abulfazl Elchibey, came to power in June 1992, Azerbaijan turned increasingly towards Turkey. Indeed, Elchibey was decidedly Pro-Turkish, secularly oriented, pan-Azeri and vehemently anti-Iranian. This meant that Tehran had exactly the kind of government in Baku that it did not wish to have. President Elchibey did not show any diplomatic tact either. On several occasions, he blasted Iran as a doomed state and predicted that within five years, Azerbaijan would be reunited. It remains clear that during the Elchibey's rule, Iran drifted towards close contacts with Armenia.

Allegations of Iranian involvement have also been voiced by Azerbaijan , especially concerning the coup d'etat that overthrew Elchibey in the summer of l993. Azeri conspiracy theorists even see a joint Russo-Iranian action behind that coup. Although no credible evidence has been presented to prove such allegations, it remains clear that during Elchibey's rule, Iran drifted towards close contacts with Armenia . Also, it must be noted that whereas Iran sought closer relations with all newlv independent states, Armenia was one of the few to welcome such relations, whereas Central Asian republics showed little interest. However, Iran 's support for Armenia fell short of any military involvement of the Russian type. Rather, lran supplied Armenia with necessary goods and energy, hence counteracting the Turco-Azeri embargo on the country which actually considerably weakened Azerbaijan 's main bargaining chip against Armenia . Iran is today Armenia 's largest trading partner. The Azeris also suspect Iran of involvement in support of radical Islamic political movements in Azerbaijan , as well as of encouraging ethnic unrest among Azerbaijan ’s Talysh minority; which lives near the Iranian border. Thus the curious legacy of the Elchibey era: an Islamic state, Iran , ended up supporting Christian Armenia against Muslim Azerbaijan.

He also states:

Religious and ethnic Azerbaijani forces advocated support to the brethren in Azerbaijan against the Armenian infidel. Meanwhile, the foreign policy establishment saw the weakening of the republic of Azerbaijan as concomitant to Iranian national interest, and therefore pursued a policy of tacit support for Armenia in the conflict. Whereas Iranian vacillation and hesitation in the first years of the 1990s can be ascribed to these internal divisions, the general direction of Tehran’s policy soon became clear. With the exception of instances where it became necessary to restore a balance by preventing Armenia from turning the region into chaos (since too much suffering and chaos in Azerbaijan would risk arousing Iranian public opinion) Tehran used the conflict to pressure Baku. Iran served as Armenia’s main purveyor of electricity and goods, and after the Armenian conquest of Nagorno-Karabakh, Iranian trucks have been supplying most of the secessionist enclave’s needs. The decisive factor tilting Tehran towards Yerevan was nevertheless the policies of the Popular Front government in Baku...Led by President Abulfaz Elcibey the Popular Front government gradually developed a vehemently anti-Russian and anti-Iranian policy.

.

Ironically, Elchibey was against the break up of his own nation based on ethnic lines, stating "Armenians have been living in Azerbaijan for centuries, and as full citizens of the state - just like the Kurds, Lezgins, Tats, and Talyish...let them continue to live here as equal citizens before the law - but they must obey the laws of the state, no country would demand any less. He also denounced Iran's peace efforts during the Nargorno-Karabakh conflict, claiming Iran was attempting to give Armenia the advantage. However, Iran supported Nakhchivan and pressured Armenia to refrain from attacking. In 1992, Elchibley, in Turkey, he described himself as a soldier of Ataturk and called for the downfall of Iran, which prompted a member of the Iranian parliament to threaten retaliation.

Since then however, the two nations have had relatively good relations, although tensions have sometimes been high, cooperating in many different areas including trade, security, and the energy sector. However, some tensions include the growing relationship between the United States, Israel, and Azerbaijan, Caspian Sea territorial issues, and Irans support for Armenia. President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan had said that he did not support a United States attack against Iran. Novruz Mamedov, Azerbaijani presidential international affairs department head in 2005, has also said that Azerbaijan would not allow the United States to build bases within Azerbaijani territory and would not help in an attack against Iran.

There were incidents involving of the use of force or its demonstration on the part of Iranian military forces. On July 23, 2001, an Iranian warship and two jets forced a research vessel working on behalf of British Petroleum (BP)-Amoco in the Araz-Alov-Sharg field in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea which aslo claimed by Iran . On February 22, 2007 Azerbaijani media outlets reported that Iranian helicopters had violated the air space of Azerbaijan and by flying over the southern town of Astara for over 20 minutes. Reportedly, the flight took place right over the city administration building and caused considerable panic among the local residents. But for the most part Azerbaijan and Iran avoided any serious military clashes. In May 2005 Baku and Tehran signed a non-aggression pact barring third countries to use their territory for offensive operations against each other.

In March 2006 during the World Congress of Azerbaijanis convened in Baku a number of participants addressed both the concept of a "unified Azerbaijan" and human rights abuses against Azeris in Iran. A diplomatic controversy erupted when Iran's ambassador to Azerbaijan, Afshar Suleymani, an Azeri himself, expressed indignation concerning the views of some speakers who advocated the union of "southern" and "northern" Azerbaijan. Certain anti-Iran claims during an official seminar in Baku were harmful to relations between the two countries and were especially against the interests of the Republic of Azerbaijan.

According to Karl Rahder, "Most analysts agree that the Iranian government has attempted to infiltrate Azerbaijan with agents and fifth column sleeper cells to weaken Azerbaijan from within for many years." Opposite views stress on Azerbaijan’s territorial claims over Iran

President Ilham Aliyev's attitude of calling Iranian Azeri's as "Azerbaijanis who live in Iran" has made some Iranian Azeri's angry for several times.The last time that a minister of Azerbaijan republic called ethnic Iranian Azeri's with that title, that caused representative of Ardabil province in the Iranian parliament to protest.

Nevertheless, the relations between the two republics are once again developing.

On December 20, 2005 Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliev and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad attended the opening ceremony of a new gas pipeline from Iran to Azerbaijan's landlocked Nakhchivan Autonomous Region, which is separated from the mainland of Azerbaijan by a strip of Armenian territory. Nakhchivan has been cut off from gas supplies as a result of the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh. Under a 25-year swap contract signed between the two countries in August 2004, the new pipeline will supply the region with Iranian natural gas. Azerbaijan will also deliver its gas to Iran's northeastern provinces. The volume of gas imports to Nakhchivan is expected to reach 250 million cubic meters in 2006 and 350 million cubic meters in 2007.

On February 3, 2007 Azerbaijan’s minister of communications and information technology, Ali Abbasov, and the head of the Iranian State Broadcasting Agency, Ezzatollah Zarghami, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on bilateral media cooperation. Previously, Azerbaijan urged Iran to cease its "broadcasting and unauthorized transmission of Iranian Sahar-2 television into Azerbaijan" and "criticized the Azeri-language broadcasts beamed into southern Azerbaijan for containing "anti-Azerbaijani propaganda" aimed at destabilizing the southern regions of the country, and faulted the Iranian government for "interference in Azerbaijan's internal affairs. Iranian officials have claimed that the broadcasts are beyond their control, as Sahar-2 is a privately owned station and merely expresses "its own position" in its programs"

On March 19, 2007, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran joined President Robert Kocharian of Armenia to inaugurate a gas pipeline to pump Iranian natural gas to Armenia. Armenia is Azerbaijan's arch-foe. Likewise, in a Washington Institute for Near East Policy analysis, analysts Soner Cagaptay and Alexander Murinson alluded to reports that Israeli intelligence maintains listening posts along the Azerbaijani border with Iran.

On the 12th of April 2007, Azerbaijan handed Hadi Sid Javad Musavi, an Iranian citizen affiliated with the Southern Azerbaijan National Awakening Movement, to the Iranian authorities.