Iran-Azerbaijan: geopolitics and more

Orkhan Sattarov. Exclusively to VK

The Azerbaijani mass media reports: on August 7 in Iran hearings on the legal proceeding against two arrested Azerbaijani poets began. Society will become aware, at last, of the accusations of Azerbaijani citizens kept in prison since May 2012.

Young Azerbaijani poets Farid Husein and Shakhriar Gadzhizade went to a literature festival in Tabriz and were arrested there right before their departure. The Azerbaijani side didn’t receive any clear answer on the question about accusations. The mass media spread plenty of versions. Some sources state that the poets are accused of incitement of ethnic hatred and separatism; others say that they are accused of violation of rules for crossing the Iranian border (this version is weird, because the poets have an official invitation to the literature festival and there is visa-free regime between Iran and Azerbaijan). The deputy foreign minister of Iran, Hussein Amir Abdullahian, refused to answer the question of the Azerbaijani agency APA on fate of the arrested poets. He said: “I don’t know anything about the arrest of Azerbaijani poets in Iran and details of this issue.”

In this context the news that the Appeal Court of Baku reduced the sentence term for the Iranian journalist Anar Bairamly from two years to one year is interesting. Some analysts believe that Baku makes Tehran understand that it waits for similar mild attitude to the arrested poets.

A negative role around the arrested poets might be played by the political situation around Iran which directly influences relations between Baku and Tehran. The West still tries to include Azerbaijan into the anti-Iranian coalition. It is indirectly proved by the fact that for a short period in the US a number of publications and urges by politicians to the authorities of the country to “protect Azerbaijan” from Iran has grown. The former American congressman Michel McMahon urged the administration of the US to support Azerbaijan in the context of the Iranian threat. He writes: “Tehran is annoyed by the fact that Azerbaijan is on friendly terms with the US and Israel, at the same time, Iran is a friend of the bitter enemy of Azerbaijan – Armenia.

Iran is intensively conducting anti-Azerbaijani policy in the territory of Azerbaijan – in mosques financed by Tehran. It is done for attraction of Azerbaijani citizen on its side. The Iranian intelligent services have several times tried to organize terrorist attacks in Azerbaijan against Western offices and foreign citizens. The Iranian television is holding anti-Azerbaijani propaganda aimed at destabilization of the government.

Azerbaijan becomes more and more important for energy security and diversification of global markets because oil and gas pipelines for Western markets come across its territory by-passing Russia. In the future export of oil and gas from the Caspian region will increase.

Moreover, Azerbaijan’s importance increases due to transit routes of Western troops to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Today 40% of the transits are provided through Baku.”

In the conclusion McMahon says: “I would like to give a piece of advice to my former colleagues in the Congress. Remember that the Congress should pay more attention to the US friendly neighbors of Iran and support them.”

In this context it appeared that Azerbaijan agreed to construct seven radiolocation stations in the Caspian region. According to the official version, the net of stations will be used by the naval forces, the coastal guard and the State Border Guard of Azerbaijan for struggle with illegal trade. However, some experts believe that the radiolocation stations could be used directly against Iran and that Azerbaijan inclines to joining the Western anti-Iranian coalition.

The Russian agency REGNUM reports that Azerbaijan plans to leave Iran aside from energy projects in the regions, including expelling of Iran from participants of the gas pipeline project from the Caspian Sea to Europe. According to the head of the SOCAR Foreign Investment Department, Vagif Aliyev, Azerbaijan won’t include the Iranian company Naftiran Intertrade Co, which is a participant of the consortium Shah-Deniz, into the project of the Trans-Anatolian gas oil (TANAP).

However, everything is not lost for Baku and Tehran. In late August Iran welcomes the summit of the Nonaligned Movement, and Azerbaijan is its member. The visit by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev will enable discussion of problems in the bilateral relations at the top level.