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Tensions are rising between Iran and Azerbaijan over Baku’s plans for a land connection to its exclave of Nakhchivan through Armenian territory, threatening to undermine Turkish-Iranian ties as properly.
The wrangling between Tehran and Baku has escalated since Iran held navy workout routines on its border with Azerbaijan final month, together with drills on crossing the Aras River, which varieties a part of the frontier. Concurrently, Iran opened a consulate in Syunik, the southernmost Armenian province that borders Iran and is on the middle of the tensions.
The hostile exchanges resulted in mutual notes of protests earlier this month as each the Azerbaijani ambassador in Tehran and his counterpart in Baku have been summoned by the respective international ministries.
Apprehension is rife in Tehran that Azerbaijan, emboldened by its victory over Armenia in a 2020 territorial conflict, seeks to redraw borders by taking management of a strip of territory throughout Syunik, which separates Azerbaijan correct to the east and Nakhchivan to the west. As a part of the cease-fire phrases, Armenia pledged to permit transportation hyperlinks between Azerbaijan correct and Nakhchivan — a route that Baku calls the Zangezur hall and has threatened to safe by power if want be. Iran worries that Azerbaijani management of the strip may minimize its border reference to Armenia. For Turkey, it will imply a direct land hyperlink with Azerbaijan through neighboring Nakhchivan and a path to Central Asia bypassing Iran.
Turkey’s navy help was essential for Azerbaijan’s features within the conflict with Armenia. The 2 nations share frequent ethnic roots and language and luxuriate in shut political and financial bonds. Azerbaijanis are referred to as additionally Azerbaijani Turks and the 2 nations describe their bond as “one nation, two states.”
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev stated Nov. 8 the military was able to defend the nation’s pursuits, referring to Iran. “Those that conduct navy workout routines in help of Armenia on our border ought to know this as properly. No person can scare us,” he added.
In early November, Azerbaijan detained 19 individuals on suspicion of espionage for Iran and planning acts in opposition to state safety. The transfer adopted Tehran’s declare that an Azerbaijani nationwide who got here from Baku was the primary coordinator of the lethal Oct. 26 assault on a Shiite shrine in Iran.
In additional finger-shaking at Tehran, Aliyev confused the necessity to defend the rights and safety of hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijanis “who sadly stay exterior the borders of Azerbaijan” — a reference to the massive Azerbaijani minority in Iran — as he addressed the Nov. 11 summit of the Group of Turkic States.
The media conflict, in the meantime, crossed extra traces. In what Tehran sees as a separatist plot, the Azerbaijani media have revived discourse a couple of “united Azerbaijan” and references to “Southern Azerbaijan” — a time period with irredentist connotations for Iran’s predominantly Azerbaijani northern provinces. Such rhetoric had been shelved because the overthrow of nationalist chief Abulfaz Elchibey in 1993.
Mahmudali Chehregani, the exiled chief of the South Azerbaijan Nationwide Awakening Motion, who has lengthy been a persona non grata in Baku, now speaks on state tv, vowing that “Better Azerbaijan will convey the tip of the hateful and chauvinist mullah regime” in Iran. His motion advocates the secession of “South Azerbaijan” from Iran and espouses the motto “Russians, Persians and Armenians are the enemy of Turks.”
In one other instance, Caliber.az, a web site linked to the Baku authorities, reported, “The time has come: South Azerbaijan should secede from Iran,” whereas a TV presenter saluted “South Azerbaijan” as she eliminated her scarf whereas presenting the climate for Tabriz, the primary Azerbaijani-majority metropolis in northern Iran.
Throughout a go to to Baku shortly after Azerbaijan’s victory over Armenia in 2020, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan infuriated Tehran by reciting a poem lamenting the nineteenth century partition of Azerbaijan. Final month, Azerbaijan’s state broadcaster aired movies of individuals of varied ages reciting the identical poem, whereas the presenter stated that Erdogan “sparked resistance” as “greater than 30 million individuals dwelling in South Azerbaijan rose up after [his recital of] the poem.”
Iran’s Sahar TV, which broadcasts in Azerbaijani, has responded with applications arguing that Azerbaijan is traditionally a part of Iran and that Nakhchivan’s individuals need to be part of Iran.
Azerbaijan additional angered Iran on Nov. 18 with its determination to open an embassy in Tel Aviv, a transfer that comes atop its rising protection cooperation with Israel.
Baku may hardly have flouted Tehran’s crimson traces to such an extent with out understanding that Turkey stands staunchly by its aspect.
Ankara has backed Baku’s push for the Zangezur hall, however tried to not antagonize Tehran by proposing a cooperation discussion board between all six nations within the area. Tehran’s reactions, nevertheless, counsel it sees Turkey’s features as its personal losses. For Tehran, Turkey’s plan to connect with Central Asia through the Zangezur hall, bypassing the present Iranian route, threatens to close Iran off from the Caucasus. Some even name it a “Turanist hall.”
Turkey’s efforts to invigorate the Group of Turkic States, which brings it along with Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, have additionally unsettled Tehran. A stronger Turkish affect within the Turkic world, it fears, may destabilize Iran’s north, the place the Azerbaijanis and different Turkic minorities such because the Turkmen and Qashqai peoples stay. Moreover, an Azerbaijan with a stronger standing due to Turkish help may change into a middle of gravity for its kin in Iran.
Of their assembly in July, Supreme Chief Ali Khamenei advised Erdogan that any plan that might block Iran’s border with Armenia was unacceptable. And President Ibrahim Raisi cautioned Aliyev in October that Iran wouldn’t tolerate “any change in historic borders, regional geopolitics and Iran-Armenia transit routes.”
The concerns underlying Iran’s imaginative and prescient of the Zangezur hall as a geopolitical risk might be summarized as follows:
- Iran may lose its border connection and direct transportation hyperlinks with Armenia.
- Its entry to the Caucasus and Russia may change into tougher and Iran may lose affect within the Caucasus.
- The undertaking would enable NATO to encompass Iran.
- Iran would endure financial losses when Azerbaijan correct now not connects to Nakhchivan through Iran, which might additionally lower Tehran’s leverage over Baku.
- Iran may lose benefits as a route between Asia and Europe.
- Iran’s strategic worth in China’s Belt and Highway Initiative may lower.
- A potential use of the Zangezur route to hold Turkmenistan’s fuel to Turkey and Europe may lower the demand for Iranian fuel.
- Iran’s entry to the Black Sea may very well be blocked.
- A change in the established order in Zangezur, which Aliyev calls “ancestral land,” may end in Azerbaijan taking management of the Aras River.
Turkey says these considerations are unfounded, whereas Aliyev claims that Iran is indignant for “shedding a drug-trafficking route” to Europe. He additionally tends to see Iran’s escalatory strikes as an try and distract consideration from the anti-regime protests rattling the nation.
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