DIFFICULT NEIGHBOUR

Relations between Baku and Tehran have been strained ever since Azerbaijan regained its national sovereignty. Iran made no secret that it was not very happy with this event. While Turkey and Pakistan recognized our independence, the Iranian ambassador in Moscow said that his country intends to maintain relations with Azerbaijan exclusively through the paralyzed government of the USSR. Under the Popular Front of Azerbaijan, relations between our countries acquired an openly hostile character. Only with the efforts of the late President Heydar Aliyev, was it possible to somewhat rectify the situation, but the contradictions that divide Tehran and Baku are still in place. One of the specific differences is first of all the status of the Caspian Sea. Tehran insists that the sea should be divided into equal 20-per-cent shares, which does not meet standards accepted in the world and ultimately boils down to Iran's demand to expand its sector at the expense of Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. Realizing that their approach is unacceptable to other littoral states, Iran's negotiators are doing their best to delay the final agreement. This, according to Tehran, should, if not eliminate, at least make extremely difficult and limit the West's economic and especially military penetration of the Caspian basin

However, no matter how significant the question of delimiting the parties' interests in the Caspian Sea is, political and ideological contradictions are crucial. The very existence of an independent Azerbaijan Republic is seen by the Iranian authorities as an undesirable example for more than 20 million of their own ethnic Azerbaijani citizens deprived of their basic national rights. Unconcealed anger and resentment among Iranian mullahcracy is caused by the fact that the Azerbaijani leadership firmly defends secularism and decisively foils all attempts to extend religious influence from the outside to our country. Iran's authority in Azerbaijan is low and not comparable with the influence of the West, Turkey and Russia. This, as well as Baku's reluctance to listen to "the advice and wishes" of Tehran in its domestic and, more importantly, foreign policy causes growing tensions in bilateral relations.

So it is not just Azerbaijan's choice of secularism. The Alawi regime in Syria is also quite secular. President Bashar al-Assad, like his late father Hafez, suppresses the opposition represented by the Muslim Brotherhood in the most ruthless and bloody way. The Alawites themselves were declared a Shia denomination of Islam with a very big stretch just because under the Constitution, only a Muslim can be president of Syria. Both dogmatic and ritualistic Alawism professed by the Syrian ruling elite has nothing to do with Ja'fari Shiism officially adopted in Iran. But Syria is an ally of Iran. Damascus obediently follows in the footsteps of Iran's foreign policy and opposes not only Israel, but also other Arab countries. That was enough for Tehran to fully support the regime of Bashar al-Assad who is fighting a war against his own people and is severely condemned and sanctioned by the international community.

For Azerbaijan, behaviour similar to Syria is ruled out. The public and government structure of Iran, as well as the foreign policy being conducted by its Islamist leadership have doomed this country to isolation in the world and tough sanctions. Not surprisingly, Iran's state-social model and the Iranian style of behaviour in international affairs do not attract the government and the vast majority of citizens of Azerbaijan.

We have made our choice in favour of accelerated modernization and European integration. As for relations with Iran, Azerbaijan prefers to build them on the basis of good neighbourliness, mutually beneficial economic cooperation and respect for the political and ideological choice of each other. Baku is bound by the commitment that there will be no threat to Iran's security from the territory of Azerbaijan and believes that this is enough for the Iranian authorities to be free from their phobias regarding us. The claims of Iranian politicians and ayatollahs to instruct us on how to build relations with the United States and Israel, the European Union and NATO and on what religious and educational policies should be implemented are politely but firmly rejected by the leadership of Azerbaijan with the full support of the population. Against the background of the fact that even Christian Armenia treats Iran with servility, the neglect by Shiite Azerbaijan of Iranian "tips and warnings" is seen by Iran's ruling mullahcracy as some sort of challenge. After all, it demonstrates not only to the rest of the world, but to the Iranian population itself the inefficiency of the Islamic model promoted by Tehran.

Azerbaijan takes a principled stance on major issues of world politics and acts in international organizations in accordance with it. Thus, despite the dissatisfaction of Tehran and Moscow, Azerbaijan supported the UN Security Council resolution on Syria. Baku did so not out of a desire to please the West, but voted for a resolution submitted by Arab countries themselves and supported by the close allies of Azerbaijan - Turkey and Pakistan. Azerbaijan has consistently opposed military strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities, but fulfils the sanctions imposed by the UN Security Council. In general, Azerbaijan acts symmetrically with regard to Iran at the UN. When the UN General Assembly voted for a resolution on the situation in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan two years ago, the Iranian representative who was present at the assembly hall did not register and avoided publicly supporting Azerbaijan in such a primitive way. Accordingly, when the General Assembly voted on the resolution on Iran, our representative did the same.

Despite Tehran's disapproval, Azerbaijan consistently transfers its armed forces to NATO standards, implementing a programme of partnership with NATO. With US and Turkish support, we have upgraded our military infrastructure, and a programme of military-technical cooperation with Israel is currently developing. So, recently it became known that Baku signed a $ 1.6-billion contract with Israel Aerospace Industries for the purchase of air and missile defence systems, unmanned aerial vehicles, precision weapons, as well as staff training. It is the largest agreement for both of our two countries and for the region. If it is implemented, the air and missile defence of Azerbaijan will become so strong that it will not only neutralize threats from Armenia, but also become insurmountable for Iran and even Russia.

It is not surprising that Tehran is very irritated with this. To allay the fears of our southern neighbour, Azerbaijani Defence Minister Colonel-General Safar Abiyev paid an official visit to Iran in mid-March and held talks with his Iranian counterpart and President Ahmadinejad. Apparently, the explanations that were received were convincing enough, because speaking at a press conference following the visit, Iranian Defence Minister Ahmad Vahidi said that "the question of Azerbaijan purchasing arms from Israel is not new... This has no connection with Iranian-Azerbaijani relations. Iran is ready to render all assistance to Azerbaijan in the military sphere and to conduct joint military exercises."

Such conciliatory words are certainly better than the threatening statements that Iranian ayatollah, politicians or generals irresponsibly make against Azerbaijan from time to time. But at the same time, Iran continues to keep a large group of its armed forces close to our borders. Therefore, implementing the programme to strengthen our national defence, we cannot ignore this fact. It is evident that in spite of the publicly declared commitment to Islamic solidarity, Tehran is developing comprehensive relations with Armenia, which has occupied Azerbaijani territories, and indirectly supports the Armenians in an effort to prolong and maintain the status quo established as a result of the military invasion.

Not being able to secure its influence in Azerbaijan in civilized ways, Iran has unleashed a real information and propaganda war against Azerbaijan. Suffice it to mention the creation of the special TV channel Sahar-2, which is broadcasting in the Azerbaijani language. The news bulletins and special programmes of this formally "independent" channel, which in reality belongs to the government, are so biased and evil that many people in Azerbaijan call it not Sahar, but Z?h?r i.e. poison. Part of the psychological pressure was an absurd statement by Hojjat ol-Islam Ruhollah Bejani, the secretary of the Tabriz branch of the internationally recognized terrorist organization Hezbollah, with threats against the Azerbaijani consulate in the city. Some time earlier, equally inappropriate warnings to the Azerbaijani leadership were made by Iran's chief of staff Firuzabadi in Tehran and Ayatollah Ameli in Ardebil. All these verbal attacks are unproductive and only cause mutual alienation. In order to reduce the intensity of the information-propaganda confrontation, a special delegation headed by the head of a department at the Presidential Administration, Ali Hasanov, was sent to Tehran last year. During the meetings and talks, mutual understanding seemed to have been achieved, but all the subsequent actions of the Iranian side, unfortunately, demonstrate the opposite.

Another painful problem in Azerbaijani-Iranian relations is cross-border drug trafficking. Tehran relentlessly fights drug abuse in its country. Suffice it to say that about five hundred people are publicly executed for drug-related crimes every year. At the same time, there is an increase in smuggling of drugs across our border. It can be perceived only as the use of drug trafficking by the special services of Iran to finance their agents and cause damage to Azerbaijan.

This is evidenced by the recent raids conducted by the Ministry of National Security of Azerbaijan. As a result, a group of 22 people accused of spying on the instructions of the Iranian Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) was exposed and arrested. Unfortunately, instead of accepting the hard facts and apologizing, the Iranian side resorted to counter-accusations and diplomatic attacks. Thus, referring to an anonymous interview published in a British newspaper, Tehran accused Azerbaijan of assisting Israeli agents who allegedly kill Iranian nuclear scientists. And recently, our ambassador in Tehran, Cavansir Axundov, was invited to the Iranian Foreign Ministry, where he was given a note of protest against the accusations against the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps in connection with the organization of an espionage-terrorist network and preparation of terrorist attacks in Baku. The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry, of course, dismissed the unsubstantiated Iranian claims and allegations.

The difficult Azerbaijani-Iranian relations are exacerbated by the situation surrounding Iran due to that country's refusal to comply with IAEA requirements on Iran's nuclear programme and address the concerns of the international community over its military nature. The list of IAEA claims to Tehran is growing. Associated Press quoted unnamed IAEA experts, who studied photographs taken from satellites, as saying that Iran is presumably working to eliminate the traces of radiation after testing a neutron detonator at the Parchin nuclear facility. This is due to the fact that after long delays, Tehran agreed on 16 March to allow IAEA inspectors to visit this facility. Experts unambiguously say that the neutron detonator is required only for a nuclear weapons programme.

In parallel with the sanctions, the risk of a military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities is increasing. Media and experts are using a term like "when" rather than "possible" while talking about it. There is speculation that Israel might decide to take separate action in summer in the midst of the election campaign in the US, which will tie the hands of President Obama, who restrains the excessive belligerence of Tel Aviv. By the way, experts who believe that Israel is unable to get involved in a war with Iran on its own without support from the US are not so right.

According to Global Fire Power, Israel has not only quantitative but also qualitative military superiority. Israeli planes and tanks are certainly better than Iranian ones. In the opinion of authoritative experts, Israel has several hundred nuclear warheads and modern means of delivery. Iran has none so far. Even though Washington has called on Israel to show restraint, it continues to build up its military forces near Iran.

What should Azerbaijan do in this situation? We are not able to radically affect the course of events. Nor can we change geography. It remains to minimize the risks to ourselves. Armenia sleeps and dreams in vain that Tehran, failing to reach for the US and Israel, will irrationally bring down its anger on Azerbaijan in response to the attack on its nuclear facilities. Membership of the UN Security Council has strengthened the international position of Azerbaijan. We have accumulated solid monetary and financial reserves and are taking all possible measures to strengthen our defence capability.

Alliances have also been brought into action. If NATO, US and Israel are perceived by Iran as a hostile force, Tehran will hardly ignore Turkey and Pakistan's opinion and good attitude to itself. To prevent some hotheads in Iran from losing contact with reality, the chief of the general staff of the Turkish Armed Forces, Army General Necdet Ozel, visited Azerbaijan in February, and after that, Baku was visited by the chairman of the Pakistani Joint Chiefs of Staff, Khalid Shamim. At a meeting with Azerbaijani Defence Minister Safar Abiyev, he openly stated that Pakistan is an ally of Azerbaijan and has always supported us. In continuation of this diplomatic line, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari is expected to visit Azerbaijan in April.

As we can see, all authoritative regional forces are being used in order to stabilize the situation. It must also be noted that Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan went to Iran on 28-29 March immediately after the summit on nuclear security in Seoul to discuss bilateral, regional and international issues with the Iranian authorities. It is unlikely that he did not mention Azerbaijani-Iranian relations. But the main thing is Iran's nuclear programme. Turkish diplomacy is making great efforts for a peaceful solution to this problem, and not without success. It has been announced that the second phase of the negotiations in the format of the so-called "5+1" (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council + Germany) is scheduled for early April in Istanbul. Tehran says it expresses "political confidence in Turkey". So let's hope that there are still chances for a peaceful resolution of the Iranian nuclear issue, and they will be used. Azerbaijan is perhaps more interested in this than any of Iran's neighbours.