Iran Battles Turkish Influence in South Caucasus

Iran is attempting to regain its affect within the South Caucasus. In October, it introduced large-scale army workout routines, dubbed “Mighty Iran”, close to the border with Azerbaijan. The drills, a repeat of final yr’s, ought to be seen as an expression of the rising discomfort inside the Islamic Republic towards what it sees because the worsening geopolitical state of affairs within the South Caucasus. 

The wargames had been held alongside the Aras river, which largely separates Iran from Azerbaijan, and concerned working towards river crossings, a sign of the offensive potentialities of the drills. The date of the workout routines additionally coincided with October 2020, when Azerbaijan reclaimed misplaced territories from Armenia alongside Iran’s northern border. 

The South Caucasus are sometimes termed “troubled” by outsiders given a historical past of invasion, shifting boundaries, and internecine warfare. The three small states of the area, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia, are surrounded by a extra highly effective and populous triad of neighbors; Russia, Turkey, and Iran, every of which has an intimate curiosity in developments. 

Following the Second Nagorno-Karabakh Warfare of 2020, Iran’s energy within the area diminished, with Turkey the principle winner due to its help for Azerbaijan’s army triumph. Iran worries that its closest accomplice, Armenia, is now critically weakened, whereas emboldened Azerbaijan is suspected of pushing for additional main territorial modifications. The Islamic Republic, due to this fact, has good cause to attempt to reshape occasions to adapt to its nationwide pursuits. 

Though Iran is formally silent, the underlying sentiment behind its current strikes is motivated partly by Azerbaijan’s newfound power and partly by Turkey’s. The latter has considerably elevated its place within the South Caucasus following the 2020 battle. Ankara equipped Azerbaijan with fashionable weaponry, together with drones, educated its troopers, signed an official treaty of alliance, and set its gaze towards the Caspian Sea and additional into Central Asia, particularly Turkmenistan. Turkey’s rising position may also be seen as benefitting the West (it’s, in any case, a NATO member), which provides one other aspect to Iran’s discomfort. Some now see the prospect of an arc of highly effective alliance Turkic states rising alongside its northern borders. 

The issue is additional exacerbated by Azerbaijan’s more and more coercive conduct towards Armenia. The latter, badly defeated within the 2020 battle, is solely unable to withstand Azerbaijan’s army energy, as seen once more in September. Talks on the approaching peace treaty between the 2 nations are underway and this poses an actual danger for Iran; Armenia could also be compelled to conform to an east-west Azeri hall by means of its southernmost province of Syunik, which may block Iran’s free motion northward. This explains Iran’s stark statements that the nation wouldn’t enable any modifications to the borders of the South Caucasus states. In only one current instance, Iran’s Overseas Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian mentioned in an interview that, “Iran is not going to allow the blockage of its connection route with Armenia, and so as to safe that goal the Islamic Republic of Iran launched a wargame in that area.”  

In one other transfer, which amounted to a veiled message, Amir-Abdollahian on October 21 opened a brand new consulate in Kopan, the middle of Armenia’s Syunik area. The geography says all of it – Iran is severe about sustaining the territorial established order within the area. Furthermore, the go to pointedly coincided with Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s journey to Azerbaijan’s Zangilan area. 

The Syunik strip is successfully Iran’s solely route into the South Caucasus freed from Turkic affect, and thus the geopolitical stakes are excessive. The lack of this connection would make Iran more and more reliant on the goodwill of the Turko-Azerbaijani alliance, placing the 2 nations in a really highly effective place. Such a growth would in all probability additionally put paid to Iran’s hopes of constructing a hall to Georgia. 

Iran would additionally lose its present leverage over Azerbaijan, which has to make use of Iranian transit routes to succeed in its Nakhchivan exclave. In July, Iran’s Supreme Chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei voiced his displeasure with a possible Azeri transport hall by means of Armenian territory, slicing out his nation. 

Iran’s current strikes thus need to be seen inside this wider geo-economic prism. The competitors with Turkey is silent however nonetheless serves as a driving drive in shaping Iran’s posture. Russia could be relied on to supply some help, because it too worries about Turkish assertiveness, because it has since Czarist occasions. However the Kremlin is itself constrained as a result of it wants Turkey, specifically, its neutrality within the disastrous battle towards Ukraine. This goes a protracted option to explaining Russia’s tolerance of Turkey’s daring strikes by means of its rapprochement with Armenia, army help to Azerbaijan and Georgia, and different initiatives deep inside Central Asia.  

That on no account makes Vladimir Putin pleased concerning the rising Turkish affect. Nevertheless it implies that competitors is now relatively sotto voce even because the stakes enhance. Iran’s wargames should not mere posturing; it’s establishing that it has key pursuits at stake in the way forward for the area.  

Emil Avdaliani is a professor at European College and the Director of Center East Research on the Georgian think-tank, Geocase.