/ world today news/ The confrontation, even the smallest, between Iran and Azerbaijan will change the situation not only in Transcaucasia. This will create a new highly complex conflict in the Middle East involving the interests of regional and global powers. The Ukrainian scenario could also be repeated.
During a hearing before the foreign relations committees of the US Congress, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken made a surprising statement. In his words, “Azerbaijan needs protection as it has a long border with Iran” . Blinken called for the repeal of Amendment 907 to the Freedom Support Act, which prohibits Washington’s direct aid to Azerbaijan. In addition, the administration of US President Joe Biden requested $700,000 to support the participation of the Azerbaijani army in international military exercises.
Baku is not an official ally of Washington, and the US has made no formal commitments to defend the Transcaucasian republic. Moreover, Azerbaijan is not a candidate for NATO membership. Therefore, the reasons that prompted the Americans to help Azerbaijan require some analysis.
In Blinken’s opinion, a new point of geopolitical bifurcation may appear in Transcaucasia, and this is connected with Baku and Tehran, relations between which have never been equal. For many years, many events in the region took place in the form of the Iran-Azerbaijan-Armenia triangle. But Iran (like the US, but unlike Russia) does not see tensions in the Transcaucasia as just “border problem between Armenia and Azerbaijan”.
In the context of the heavy confrontation with the West over the nuclear program, Tehran saw and felt systemic problems related to the historical past. In addition, Washington openly stated the possibility of detonating the situation in Iran from within through the ethnic factor, indicated the possibility of using the territory of Azerbaijan as a springboard for actions against the southern neighbor.
In the press, both Azerbaijani and Western, articles began to appear about “legitimacy” of the unification of Iranian (or South) Azerbaijan with the Republic of Azerbaijan. There were people in Iran itself who supported this idea.
But the ruling elites in Tehran and Baku had and continue to have different views on the issue of priorities in this process. And the warming of ethnic nationalism in Iran, in which an external factor, the so-called third power, is also involved, can destabilize the political situation not only in Azerbaijan and Iran, but also in other countries of the region.
After the second Karabakh war, victorious for Baku, serious changes began in Transcaucasia.
In the first case, fears of a geopolitical nature arose in Tehran. With the return of Jabrail, Fizuli and Zangelan under the control of Azerbaijan, 132 kilometers of the border strip with Iran along the Araks River was formed in the southern part of Nagorno-Karabakh. At the same time, tensions arose over the interpretation of one of the clauses of the November 9, 2020 peace agreement on communication corridors regarding Azerbaijan’s access to Nakhchivan through the Zangezur Corridor.
The possible passage of this corridor adjacent to the Iranian-Armenian border near the town of Megri in the southern part of the Syunik region of Armenia is causing anxiety and concern in Iran. And after the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev stated on April 21, 2021 in an interview with Public Television, that “the creation of the Zangezur Corridor fully meets our national, historical and future interests” and that “we will bring the Zangezur Corridor to life, whether Armenia wants it or not, if it wants, we will decide more easily, if it does not want, we will decide with force”, Tehran began to seriously think about the possibility of a new war between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Iranian retaliation ensued, transcending the border dispute between the two countries. For the first time in 30 years, units of the Iranian army and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) have begun to advance towards the border with Azerbaijan. Yerevan, for its part, managed to involve Baku in the Western negotiation platforms for the preparation of a peace treaty between the two countries and to “force” the West to deal with Transcaucasia.
At the same time, it is not by chance that the “Azerbaijani question” began to be more and more actively put on the stage with an increasingly active participation in its solution in various combinations of Washington, Brussels and Ankara.
The second shift is related to the start of the special military operation in Ukraine, when the West cut off supply chains with Russia, imposed restrictions on the transportation of cargo on European Union roads, closed seaports to Russian-flagged ships and closed its airspace.
For Moscow, the North-South transport corridor leading from St. Petersburg to Mumbai through Azerbaijan and Iran began to acquire strategic importance. The Moscow-Beijing-Tehran alliance emerged.
But the main thing is that Iran, along with the rapid development of relations with Russia and China, contrary to the assumptions of Azerbaijani analysts, began to rapidly change its relations with its traditional rivals in the Persian Gulf – Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. They cease to be a springboard for the anti-Iranian actions of the “collective West” led by the United States.
That is why the United States began to treat Baku with increased attention, openly playing on the aggravation of its relations with Tehran, heating up the ideological and propaganda war that “suddenly” broke out between them and promoting Azerbaijani irredentism in Iran.
These events began to fit into the conjuncture of relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia within the framework of the North-South project, in which the two countries should become the “weak links”. At the same time, the American publication Eurasianet notes that “Baku is in a most difficult situation due to objectively existing historical, geographical and geopolitical conditions.”
It is obvious that in the event of a military escalation between Iran and Azerbaijan, cooperation in such joint projects as North-South, as well as in other areas of multilateral cooperation, will collapse.
A confrontation, even the smallest one, will change the situation not only in Transcaucasia. This will create a new highly complex conflict in the Middle East involving the interests of regional and global powers. The Ukrainian scenario could also be repeated.
If the crisis escalates, even neutral players interested in resolving the situation as quickly and efficiently as possible will find it difficult to propose an appropriate solution that satisfies all parties.
In this regard, Moscow hopes that in the near future it will be possible to organize a meeting within the framework of the trilateral Russia-Iran-Azerbaijan format. This was said at a briefing by the spokesperson of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova. In her words, “we hope that in the near future it will be possible to reach a consensus on the agenda and terms of the tripartite meeting, and we, for our part, are ready to contribute to this.”
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian is also expected to visit Moscow in the coming days. The strategic scale and vector of the new geopolitical changes in Transcaucasia are still being formed.
Translation: EU
Vote with ballot No. 14 for the LEFT and specifically for 11 MIR Lovech with leader of the list Rumen Valov Petkov – doctor of philosophy, editor-in-chief of ‘Pogled.Info’ and in 25 MIR-Sofia with preferential No. 105. Tell your friends in Lovech and Sofia who to support!?
Subscribe to our YouTube channel:
and for the channel or in Telegram:
#Azerbaijan #protection #seeks #ignite #conflict
What long-term effects could the interpretation differences of the November 9, 2020 peace agreement between Azerbaijan and Iran have on regional stability and power dynamics in the South Caucasus?
1. How can Azerbaijan’s call for protection from Iran be justified, given that it is not an official ally of the United States, and what implications could this have for the region’s geopolitical dynamics?
2. What are the reasons behind the growing tensions between Azerbaijan and Iran over the interpretation of the November 9, 2020 peace agreement and the possible creation of the Zangezur Corridor? How might these tensions escalate in the future?
3. In light of the recent military operations in Ukraine, how has Azerbaijan’s strategic importance grown for Russia and other global powers, and what role might it play in future conflicts?
4. How has the warming of relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia affected Azerbaijan’s position in the region? Are there any potential advantages or disadvantages to its role as a “weak link” in this geopolitical shift?
5. What are some of the challenges facing the trilateral Russia-Iran-Azerbaijan format in resolving the ongoing tensions, and how might these challenges be overcome?
6. As the Editor-in-Chief of ‘Pogled.Info’, how does Rumen Valov Petkov view the potential impact of the upcoming elections in Bulgaria on Azerbaijan’s relationship with the EU and its neighboring countries? Furthermore, how does he perceive the importance of political cooperation between left-leaning parties in the region, given the current geopolitical turmoil?
