IRAN CROSSES THE LINE

Tehran's continued attacks on Baku over the past weeks have caused an unprecedented confrontation between the two neighbouring countries. The current situation is peculiar in that that having started with the verbal battles instigated by Iranian mullahs and the representatives of lower political ranks, the tone of ungrounded accusations against Azerbaijan has been later supported by the top leadership of Iran. Moreover, Iran has initiated an unprecedented large-scale military exercises on the border with Azerbaijan, which looks strange amid the new opportunities for peaceful development of the region.

Growing tensions

It all started with Azerbaijan's restoration of its sovereignty in the territories liberated from the Armenian occupation, including along the Azerbaijani-Iranian border. In the past year after the Second Garabagh War, Baku has repeatedly asked Tehran at various levels to stop the illegal transportation of goods from Iran to the remnants of the Armenian separatist regime in Garabagh. It is known that crossing the internationally recognised borders of Azerbaijan is permissible only with the permission of Baku. But the Iranian trucks have illegally used the Lachin corridor, which is currently in the temporary zone of responsibility of the Russian peacekeepers. Certainly, Azerbaijan has routinely expressed its concerns to the Russian side as well. None of the trilateral agreements contains a clause allowing peacekeepers to allow the citizens or vehicles of the fourth countries (in this case of Iran) to enter their zone of responsibility in Garabagh. However, instead of listening to the legitimate demands of Azerbaijan, Iranians preferred to use various primitive tricks like changing the license plates of their trucks to Armenian ones to enter Garabagh.

Meanwhile, Azerbaijani police and customs posts have been established on the section of the Gorus-Gafan interstate road passing through Azerbaijan. Now, carriers of goods from Iran to Armenia, and then to Garabagh have to go through the Azerbaijani customs and, accordingly, pay legal duties. This became a formal reason that outraged the Iranians, who later tried to justify their dissatisfaction with the presence of certain Zionists and terrorists in Azerbaijan.

Terrorists and Zionists in Azerbaijan?

On October 4, the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei, said that “the recent situation in the northwest of Iran must be resolved without the intervention and military presence of foreign forces in the region. Armies of the regional nations can control the region themselves. We will not allow other forces to intervene." Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian was more specific, saying that the Iranian authorities are concerned about "Israel's intention to take advantage of the situation around Nagorno-Karabakh in its own interests and to approach the borders of Iran under this pretext.”

Simply put, Iranian authorities believe that Israel is creating a military infrastructure in Azerbaijan for actions against Tehran. At the same time, they suppose that the supply of the Azerbaijani army is only a cover for Israel's true goals, which is the creation of a platform for striking Iran. However, Tehran forgets that even at the peak of international pressure on Iran, Azerbaijan had said that under no circumstances would it allow its territories to be used to attack its southern neighbour.

The question is how Iran imagines the presence of Israel on a territory, which, according to the same Iranians, also hosts terrorists from the Middle East. Where and how did Azerbaijan hide these terrorists for a year that neither Iran nor Armenia could present any intelligible proof of their presence? Moreover, the world community cannot show a single fact of Azerbaijan's cooperation with illegal armed groups, while the historical ties of Armenia and even Iran with the recognised terrorist groups in the Middle East are not a secret. There is not a single terrorist group in the world created directly by Azerbaijanis, while there are enough Armenian and Iranian terrorist groups, too many to list here.

Either way, the official Iranian propaganda wasn’t shy of expressions presenting Azerbaijan as a hostile state. Iranian military has gone even further, threatening Baku with the use of force. Sardar Abbas Nilforushan, Deputy Commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said: “We cannot accept the presence of our enemies in neighbouring countries. This is unacceptable and we must ensure our own safety. Thus, the IRGC ground forces have introduced a new strategy in northwestern Iran. We will fight our enemies and wherever necessary.”

Obviously, the new Iranian leadership is demonstrating a rather strange behaviour for a country that has thought about neither conducting military exercises on the border, nor introducing any special security strategy in the north-west for 30 years of living along with virtually uncontrolled territories.

Boss, it's all gone!

In fact, Azerbaijan’s liberation of its lands created good opportunities for regional development, including even for the defeated Armenia. But Tehran is jealous of the new realities. This jealousy could be understood if, for example, before the war Iran was in a more advantageous position in terms of regional cooperation. However, with so many opportunities opening up before Iran, it now becomes rather defensive.

Many analysts admit that Iran might have been quite happy with a huge uncontrolled territory in the neighbourhood, which it could use for shady matters of sorts, from the cultivation and transit of drugs to the creation of terrorist camps.

It is not a secret that for many years, Iran has had an established network of transport communication routes with the then occupied Azerbaijani territories, with 80 Iranian companies having operated illegally in Garabagh. Iran partially supplied the occupied territories with the food, construction materials and other goods. During the Second Garabagh War, Armenia received almost all military supplies through Iran. Moreover, we have just learned that when Azerbaijan was liberating its lands, Iran was collecting and transmitting intelligence data to Armenia about the movement of Azerbaijani troops along the border. On October 18, 2020, the Iranian military even crossed the Azerbaijani border near the ancient Khudaferin bridge and prevented the movement of Azerbaijani units under the pretext of protecting the safety of the dam on the Araz River. Only later it became known that this was done to buy time for the regrouping of the Armenian troops in the southern section of the front line.

After Azerbaijan's victory in the war and decisive actions to strengthen its sovereignty, Iran's influence in the region has significantly reduced. The border was closed. The transit has practically ceased, and support to the separatist regime has diminished too. At the same time, Iran has lost its former levers of influence. Russian peacekeeping forces were deployed in the region, a Turkish-Russian Monitoring Centre began to operate, Azerbaijani-Turkish military-political cooperation was strengthened, Russian border guards are strengthening their positions along the perimeter of the Armenian borders. In other words, Iran has a gradually decreasing space for manoeuvrers.

Frankly, the current situation makes one think that the reason behind the worsening relations is rather trivial. Namely, Armenia and Iran simply found themselves among the countries which do not find the regional realities emerging after the 44-day Second Garabagh War meeting their interests.

In particular, Iran is not happy with the dominance of Russian-Turkish relations in determining the basic rules of the game in the region. Perhaps that is why Iran did not support the platform of the six put forward by the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

While the Iranian military are rattling weapons, Iranian officials have proposed to stop all contacts with Azerbaijan. Local media quoted the Deputy Minister of Roads and Urban Development of Iran, Executive Director of the Organization for the Development of Transport Infrastructure Kheirollah Khademi, who said that Azerbaijan would be removed from the transit route from Iran to Europe.

Remarkably, Iran joined the restoration of the Tatev road by Armenia in order to bypass the Azerbaijani post on the Gorus-Gafan road, while it cannot complete the construction of the Rasht-Astara railway section of the North-South project. Did anyone in Iran think that the large-scale North-South project could be replaced by the small Persian Gulf-Black Sea project promoted by Yerevan?

Baku is frustrated. Fair enough!

Azerbaijan assessed Iran's actions as unfriendly. President Ilham Aliyev visited the liberated lands on the anniversary of the liberation of Jabrayil. There he stated that he rejected accusations by Iranian officials about the presence of third forces on the Azerbaijani-Iranian state border. President's rhetoric and rather harsh statements didn’t pass unnoticed. “Unfortunately, Iranian officials put forward unfounded accusations against us. They claim that Azerbaijan brought Israel to this region. Let them open their eyes and see. Where did they see Israel here?! There is no one here. There is not even any building here,” President Aliyev said. He accused the Iranian leadership of presenting unfounded and false facts. Azerbaijan does not accept Iran's position based on fictitious facts. According to Mr. Aliyev, “if there is no evidence, one should be held responsible for what he says. We cannot allow anyone to make up groundless claims against us.” President also noted that he would not disregard Tehran's attacks. He said that Baku was reviewing all the facts related to the illegal actions of Iran during the thirty-year occupation of Azerbaijani lands by Armenia. “We have cleared 130 kilometres of the Azerbaijani-Iranian border from the invaders. This territory was under the Armenian occupation. It is necessary to study the processes that were taking place here at that time. We are studying them now.” Azerbaijan can use the evidence of Tehran's international offences as an argument to substantiate its counterclaims against Iran. And these claims will be supported by specific facts.

Later, President Aliyev re-addressed the issue of strained relations with Iran. “The reason is very simple. Azerbaijan only demands respect for its borders,” Ilham Aliyev said in his interview with the Italian newspaper La Repubblica on October 13. He stated that Tehran's actions did not correspond to the high level of relations achieved over the years of cooperation with the previous Iranian authorities, as well as the good-neighbourly intentions declared by the current Iranian authorities, or the friendly messages of the Azerbaijani leadership after the presidential elections in the neighbouring country.

Lone warrior?

Meanwhile, the anti-Azerbaijani hysteria in Iran is accompanied by a demonstrative intensification of contacts between Tehran and Yerevan. Iran is also making futile attempts to draw Russia into the orbit of its actions. Thus, during his recent visit to Moscow, the Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian discussed with his counterpart the current state of Iranian-Azerbaijani relations. Abdollahian tried to make Moscow sympathetic toward the Iranian position. During the final press conference, he publicly expressed concern about the large number of military exercises conducted in the region by Azerbaijan with the involvement of external players.

Apparently, the Iranian minister expected a Russian support to limit the presence of extra-regional forces in the Caspian. However, Tehran did not receive the expected support. Referring to the military exercises, allegedly causing tension in regional affairs, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov brought to the attention of the Iranian minister Azerbaijan's concern about the Iranian exercises near its borders. As for the Caspian Sea, he blamed Iran for being the only country that has not ratified the Caspian Convention.

In general, Mr. Lavrov tried to conduct discussions in a constructive manner, noting the potential of the 3+3 platform. He said that both Russia and Iran, as well as Turkey and Azerbaijan, agree with its implementation. Only Georgia objects, and Moscow is working with Yerevan to get an agreement.

In this situation, it is important for Russia to demonstrate the advantage of an effective dialogue with all regional players. In the current situation, this gives Russia more room for manoeuvrers and defending its own interests.

But Iranian diplomacy has clearly put itself in a difficult position. It did not succeed in obtaining Russia’s understanding, upset relations with Azerbaijan and questioned the realisation of its interests with Turkey. An amazing ability to create so many problems in such a short period!

In mid-October, the US also reacted to Tehran's actions in the region. “When it comes to Iran's regional activities, we are generally very clear about our position. Iran has been a destabilising factor in many ways,” Spokesperson of the US Department of State Ned Price said during a briefing, commenting on the recent statements and actions of Iran towards Azerbaijan.

Meanwhile, on October 12, the foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and Iran, Jeyhun Bayramov and Hossein Amir Abdollahian, discussed bilateral relations by telephone, noted the urgency to resolve all disagreements through dialogue. “Ministers exchanged views on the current state of relations between the two countries. They noted that the recent rhetoric harmed the relations between the two countries and all disagreements should be resolved through dialogue,” Interfax-Azerbaijan reports with reference to the press service of the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry.

Foreign ministers underlined the need to always stay committed to the principle of territorial integrity and sovereignty of countries.

“The parties agreed that it was necessary to hold direct discussions between the respective state bodies of the two countries on the issue of transit traffic. Ministers also discussed other issues of mutual interest,” says the press office of the ministry.

Apparently, common sense will prevail in Iran. For a number of reasons, it is not in the interest of Iran to maintain tension with Azerbaijan for a long time, especially under the current conditions of strong international pressure on Iran. Tehran understands this very well. At least, it is much better to see thriving cities and smart villages along our borders than the ruins that Iran has seen over the past thirty years.