by Cem Oguz, head of the Turkish Center for Strategic and International Studies.
In the diplomatic arena, the last days are witness to interesting developments in Azerbaijani-Iranian relations. The marathon got underway when there appeared news stories in the international media regarding the murder of Rafig Tagi, an Azerbaijani journalist critical of radicalism and Iranian regime. Although not proven yet, most signs were said to have pointed to Iranian connection, since Ayatollah Fazel Lankarani had called for Tagi’s death for alleged apostasy in a fatwa declared in 2007.
Soon after, Azerbaijani authorities announced Tehran was believed to be involved in hacking attacks on a number of Azerbaijani websites. According to the Iranian Embassy in Baku, however, the Iranian side had nothing to do with these attacks. The Iranian diplomats expressed regret that some media organs has linked them with the Iranian government.
Last, but not least, the Azerbaijani National Security Ministry announced that it detained members of a gang which it said was planning to assassinate foreign citizens working in Baku. According to the Ministry, these figures were in close connection with the Iranian intelligence, a claim immediately denied again by the Iranian embassy in Baku. It was a plot, asserted the Iranian Embassy, organized by Zionists and the United States, as part of their efforts to destroy friendly relations between the two countries and further damage Iran’s international prestige as well as image.
Tehran is obviously increasingly disturbed by Azerbaijan’s growing relations with Western countries, first and foremost the U.S. and Israel, particularly at a time when these two countries are rumored to be planning an attack against Iran in response to its nuclear program. It is precisely for this reason that one might easily read the motives behind these developments. Yet, what I personally humbly fail to understand is whether Iran is right in complaining about Baku’s presumably antagonistic approach towards Iran, given its state of affairs with Armenia.
An Islamic republic favoring an avowedly Christian state in a conflict with its predominantly Muslim neighbor would normally seem unlikely, but this is exactly what Tehran did during the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the early 1990s. Since then, Iran has indeed been predisposed towards supporting Yerevan over Baku on regional issues, but first and foremost the Karabakh dispute.
There are a great variety of reasons behind this support, but I will list here only the three most crucial of them: At present, the number of ethnic Armenians living in Iran is estimated to be about only 100,000, constituting the country’s largest Christian minority. On the other hand, the number of ethnic Azeris living in Iran is at least 20 million, though there is some dispute about this figure, which is affected by the differing perspectives and motivations that the issue is approached with. These people have been integrated into Iranian society and hold important positions in the higher echelons of the state like Seyyed Ali Khamanei, the supreme leader who succeeded Ayatollah Khomeni. Nonetheless, the Iranian establishment sees these people as a potential secessionist threat, actually one to be provoked by Azerbaijan should it regain its territories still under Armenian occupation. It is precisely for this reason that Tehran attempts to strategically balance Azerbaijan with its arch enemy Armenia.
In such a milieu, I feel compelled to remind our Iranian friends of a Turkish/Azerbaijani proverb that goes, "Stick a needle in yourself first to see how much it hurts before you thrust a packing needle into others."
C. Cem Oguz This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
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