This article was published in the World Energy Weekly (October 18 issue), a publication of Petrostrategies, a French think-tank that specializes in energy issues.
Strong tensions between Iran and Azerbaijan, which are both holding multiple military maneuvers
Tensions between two oil-producing Caspian countries, Azerbaijan and Iran, are mounting dangerously. The stage of verbal confrontation has been passed and the two neighbors have started to hold military maneuvers. After its victory in the “44-day war” of autumn 2020, Baku wants to impose territorial changes in Armenia’s Syunik province, next to the Iranian border, which are rejected by Tehran. Furthermore, Azerbaijan is publicly flaunting its military cooperation with three countries (Israel, Pakistan and Turkey) which Iran deems hostile to its interests. Finally, Tehran has been severely irritated by the resurgence of a political debate in Baku calling for the unification of “the two parts of Azerbaijan”: namely, the northwestern region of Iran (mainly inhabited by some 16 million Azeri Turks) and the Republic of Azerbaijan. This discourse had been toned down in Baku after the overthrow of Abulfaz Eltchibey (1992-1993), the second President of independent Azerbaijan, and the accession of Haydar Aliyev (1993-2003), father of the current Head of State. Baku’s secessionist rhetoric, encouraged by Ankara, has met with favorable echoes in the Azeri provinces of Iran. Tehran has been slow to react, and seems to regret it. It is now making arrests and imposing prison sentences or public corporal punishment on “agitators” who sided with Baku in the war. Also, for its part, it is encouraging the autonomist tendencies of the Talysh community, Azerbaijan’s largest ethnic minority.
At the very least, the territorial adjustment that Azerbaijan wants to impose aims to create a land corridor in southern Armenia which would connect it to Nakhichevan, a historically Armenian province that was added to the Azeri Soviet Republic shortly after its foundation in April 1920, although it is landlocked between Armenia, Iran and Turkey. If this corridor were to be created, it would cut Iran off from its only direct territorial contact with Armenia and force it to use transit routes through Azeri territory alone to reach Russia (as well Caspian sea communications). It would also give Azerbaijan continuous overland communications to Turkey, whereas Turkish and Azeri trucks and cars currently have to pass through Iran, using a road that runs along the southern bank of the frontier river Araxes. The ceasefire agreement of November 9, 2020, signed by Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia, stipulates that “all economic and transport links in the region must be unblocked” and that “the construction of new transport communications linking the Autonomous Republic of Nakhichevan to the western regions of Azerbaijan will be ensured”, without however going so far as to recommend that a specific corridor be conceded to Baku.
Iran is concerned about Baku’s deepening military cooperation with hostile countries: after holding six joint military maneuvers with Turkey on its territory, including Nakhichevan, Baku held further maneuvers involving Pakistani forces as well. The last straw came in August, when Azeri forces stopped Iranian trucks and cars on a section of road which enters Armenia via the southern province of Syunik, but which crosses part of Azerbaijan. Hitherto used freely by both Armenians and Iranians, this part of the road was returned to Azeri control after the ceasefire of November 10, 2020. More than 120 Iranian vehicles were immobilized there in this way (two drivers were arrested), and were only able to resume their journey after paying $120 each. The icing on the cake was the publication of a photo of Azeri President Aliyev kissing an Israeli-made drone! Drones supplied to the Azeri Army by both Israel and Turkey were instrumental in winning the “44-day war”.
Israel is Azerbaijan’s main arms supplier, and the Iranians claim that it has listening and observation stations in the country to spy on Iran. They also accuse Israel’s Mossad of using Azerbaijan as a base for assassinating Iranian scientists, especially nuclear experts. What’s more, Tehran fears that the Israelis will use Azeri territory as a base if they attempt to strike Iran’s nuclear and military facilities. In August, Israeli Chief of Staff Aviv Kokhavi announced that “operational planning” for a possible attack on Iran would be speeded up.
The Iranians have expressed their growing irritation against Azerbaijan through increasingly threatening statements. “Instead of kissing an Israeli drone, Aliyev should stop creating tension, otherwise he will wake up to the sound of precisely-targeted missiles”, said Mohsen Dehnavi, an Iranian lawmaker close to the authorities in power. Ilham Aliyev’s excess of self-confidence is “misplaced”, according to Iranian parliamentarians, because he forgets that his army was “doped” by Turkey and by Syrian mercenaries during the “44-day war”. The escalation peaked with the launch of land, sea and air maneuvers by Iranian forces on the border with Azerbaijan on October 3, 2021, which is unprecedented. The code-name of these maneuvers was eloquent: Fatehan Kheybar or the Kheybar Conquerors, named after a battle fought in 628-629, pitting the Prophet Muhammad against Jews who lived some 150 km from what is now the city of Medina in Saudi Arabia, and who were accused of inciting Arab tribes in the region to oppose the founder of Islam.
The Iranians feel that Azerbaijan has tricked them, as they supported it politically during the last war. They took the closure of the Husseiniyah mosque in Baku on October 5 very badly, as it is run by a close friend of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the leader of the Islamic Republic, who is of Azeri descent. This was probably an Azeri response to the Iranian military maneuvers. Tehran also criticizes Baku for failing to honor agreements on the status of the Caspian Sea, which forbid the presence of forces from countries other than the region’s five riparian states. While these agreements haven’t been ratified, they are binding on the signatory countries, according to the Iranians. Azeri President Ilham Aliyev has denied any Israeli military presence in his country, and has dismissed the Iranian accusations as “baseless”. He asserted that his country won’t leave the actions of its southern neighbor unanswered. It is hard to imagine, however, that Azerbaijan would risk a military confrontation with Iran, as its consequences could be disastrous. Tehran, on the other hand, is unlikely to cross the Rubicon unless it is really forced to. If the worst comes to the worst, however, the conflict would risk involving other countries, and the region’s oil and gas facilities – which remained untouched during the last Armenian-Azeri war – would probably not survive unscathed.
