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Category: Southern Caucasus

  • Iran must deal with the reality that Azerbaijan has become a strong country

    Iran must deal with the reality that Azerbaijan has become a strong country

    Azerbaycan Iran bayragiGulnara Inandzh

    Director, Ethnoglobus

    An International Online Information and Analysis Center, editor Russian section turkishnews.com,

    email- mete62@inbox.ru

    Two recent visits by Baku officials to Tehran, Ramiz Mehdiyev, the head of the Presidential Administration, and Allahshukur Pashazade, sheikh-ul-Islam and head of the Administration of Muslims of the Caucasus, have attracted attention not only because they follow on the heels of Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov’s visit to Israel, but because they represent an effort to rebalance the relationship between Azerbaijan and Iran in both the political and religious spheres.

    None of these visits was the result of a last minute decision: all are likely to have been planned for months; and consequently, it would be a mistake to call them a coincidence.  Indeed, four years ago, a similar “coincidence” occurred when then-Iranian President Ahmadinejad and then Israeli Foreign Minister Lieberman visited Baku almost simultaneously.  This time around, Tehran assessed the visits of Mehdiyev and Pashazade as something extraordinary, given that they took place just before the Iranian presidential elections and thus helped to define the environment in which the new reformist Iranian leadership would be forced to operate.

    Iran now must deal with the reality that Azerbaijan has become a politically and economically strong country not only in the region, but in the world, and thus it is not entirely surprising that official Baku and Tehran have been seeking rapprochement and the achievement of balanced relations, not simply at the level of diplomatic words but truly friendly and trusting ties.  That is certainly suggested by the comment of the Iranian ambassador in Baku about the need to demonstrate the high level of trust between the two governments.

    Regarding the issue of mutual support, the Iranian foreign ministry noted that during Mehdiyev’s visit, the two sides discussed the Syrian crisis, something of enormous importance to Tehran and something on which, the ministry said, the two sides had succeeded in bringing their respective positions closer into line. [1] A second issue the two sides discussed was the creation of an independent Palestinian state.  Azerbaijan favors that and also supports the division of Jerusalem between Palestine and Israel.

    The third issue the two sides discussed was the equation of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and the Palestinian problem, again something on which the two sides agreed.  The fourth issue involved Iran’s commitment not to support the Talysh movement or any other separatist group in Azerbaijan, a commitment former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami had made to the late Azerbaijan President Heydar Aliyev.  And the fifth concerned the conflict between Iran and Israel, a conflict that the Israelis would like Baku to help resolve and something, which explains the proximity of the visit by Azerbaijani officials to Tehran and Israeli officials to Baku. [2] Because of that possibility, of course, both Israel and the US support good relations between Tehran and Baku, and just as was the case four years ago, Azerbaijan is in a better position to serve as an intermediary than anyone else.

    It is no accident that as these visits were taking place, Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov spoke to the American Jewish Committee Global forum in Washington.  Jewish organizations made clear that they were interested in all possible contacts through intermediaries with Tehran, including those that Azerbaijan could offer, including the follow on visit by Pashazade to Tehran, a visit that the Iran side characterized as one that reaffirmed the shared Islamic heritage of the two neighboring states.

    “In our veins,” Seid Ali Khamenei, the spiritual leader of Iran said, “flows one and the same blood,” words that reflect another slogan which has been used in Tehran about relations with Azerbaijan, “two states—one nation.”  Obviously, the Iranian religious leadership along with political ties wants to ensure close religious links as well.

    As a religious state, all of Iran’s foreign policy is built on the basis of Islam and on the support of Islamist groups in various countries.  Pashazade in this context had as his task dissuading the Iranian clerics from providing moral and material support to Azerbaijani Islamists.  The two sides were able to agree on the need to block any mass penetration of radical Islam into either country.

    Thanks to the efforts of the Iranian religious establishment, the spread of the radical wing of Salafism into the region has been limited.  The prolongation of the conflict in Syria, however, creates a favorable basis for the spread of terrorism in much the same way that the Russian-Chechen war did in the 1990s.  Consequently, Baku and Tehran have many reasons for cooperation.

    With its new president, Iran will be moving toward a new political level both internally and externally.  It will certainly want to advance Iranian-Azerbaijani relations in ways that are consistent with the needs of both sides.  And as Alex Vatanka, an expert at the Middle East Institute in Washington, has pointed out on the pages of Azerbaijan in the World, Azerbaijan is precisely the country with which Tehran will be reviewing its entire range of policies in order to boost cooperation rather than incite a new round of competition.

     

    Notes

    [1] See https://www.amerikaninsesi.org/a/irsn_azerbaijan/1660588.html (accessed 13 July 2013).

    [2] See https://www.turkishnews.com/ru/content/2012/06/11/Азербайджан-может-стать-посредником/ (accessed 13 July 2013).

    AZERBAIJAN IN THE WORLD

    ADA Biweekly Newsletter

    Vol. 6, No. 14

    July 15, 2013

     

  • Armenian architect building bridges between religions

    Armenian architect building bridges between religions

    Kevork Özkaragöz, an Armenian architect who has designed many religious monuments for different religions, refers to the opinions of the religious communities when developing his projects.

    A member of an Armenian family renowned for their stonemasonry, Özkaragöz moved from Malatya to Istanbul with his family when he was 6 years old.

    The structures built by Özkaragöz in recent years include Mahmut Şevket Paşa Hacı Bektaş Cemevi (an Alevi house of worship) in Istanbul’s Okmeydanı district, Plevne Mosque in Balıkesir’s Gönen district and the final prayer chapel in his hometown, Malatya, the Hurriyet Daily News reports.

    Last year, the final prayer chapel – in a historical Armenian cemetery in Malatya – was demolished by municipal teams, which stirred a lot of debate in society. Due to the objections, the chapel was rebuilt on the grounds that the teams had “misunderstood the order.”

    “While designing the Cemevi, I obtained the opinions of elderly persons in the Alevi community. I obtained data on Alevi culture and beliefs from studies published on the subject. And when designing the mosque, I tried to get to know the functions of a mosque by chatting with imams. I especially observed Istanbul’s mosques from the perspective of a designer. I refreshed my knowledge of mosques by examining mosques’ stages of development in art history books. I also examined Vedat Dalokay Islamabad Mosque and Behruz Çinici TCMM mosque, which were built in the Republican period,” he said.

    “Existence, oneness and love of God form the basis of religions, while they center upon human beings. I believe each faith has a different form of worship and different needs. I can develop my designs by taking all these [differences] into account with the aid of my cultural background. I am very pleased when a religious structure comes into being and people can worship in them,” Özkaragöz said.

    via Armenian architect building bridges between religions | Public Radio of Armenia.

  • The Azerbaijani people unfortunately did not have any defender

    The Azerbaijani people unfortunately did not have any defender

    SSSRPaul Goble

    Publications Advisor

    Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy

    As part of his plan to attract ethnic Armenians back to the Soviet Union after World War II and under pressure from both the leadership of the Armenian SSR and from Armenians in the top leadership of the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin in December 1947 ordered the forcible deportation of 100,000 ethnic Azerbaijanis from Armenia to Azerbaijan, beginning a process which resulted in the departure of all Azerbaijanis from what had been part of their historical space and the creation of a mono-ethnic state in Armenia, according to Govhar Bakhshaliyeva, a Milli Majlis deputy. [1]

    Recently, the Day.az news agency reported, one of its constant readers sent in a photograph of a document signed by Stalin on December 3, 1947 calling for “the resettlement of collective farms and other Azerbaijani populations” from the Armenian SSR to the Kura-Araz region of the Azerbaijan SSR.  (The news portal reproduced that photograph.)  According to Stalin’s decree, this deportation was to be entirely “voluntary,” but both the provisions of the act and the way it was carried out show that it was anything but.

    Day.az asked Govhar Bakhshaliyeva, the director of the Baku Institute of Oriental Studies and a member of the Azerbaijani parliament for comment.  She suggested that, “this document most probably was signed under the pressure of the Armenian lobby, which at that time was well-represented in the leadership of the USSR.”

    The policy outlined in it, she continued, was “a crime against Azerbaijanis.  The Armenian lobby of that tie just as was the case with Gorbachev in 1988 step by step provided materials, which showed what they wanted them to in order to incline Stalin to their position.  They were in an even better position to do that in the earlier case, because Mikoyan was close to Stalin as were many other Armenian Bolsheviks, his former comrades in arms who conducted their dirty work at the all-Union level.  At that time, the Azerbaijani people unfortunately did not have any defender” there.

    According to Bakhshaliyeva, Mir-Jafar Bagirov, the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Azerbaijan Communist Party, could not defend his people and the Azerbaijani population was deported from Armenia to Azerbaijan.  Those who were moved found themselves in extraordinarily difficult conditions.  Accustomed to the mountains, they found it hard to adjust to the heat of the lowlands.  As a result, many died.

    Bakhshaliyeva pointed out that there was nothing voluntary about this, noting that, “until today there remain people who recall these events who experienced this deportation during their childhoods, and who say that it was a barbarous act toward Azerbaijanis who were indigenous to Armenia.  They remember,” she continued, “that this was something unbelievable and a great injustice,” all the more so because their lands were quickly filled up by new ethnic Armenian arrivals.

    “Unfortunately,” the Azerbaijani parliamentarian says, “this unjust policy continued for decades and was completed in our times, at the end of the 1980s, after which there were virtually no ethnic Azerbaijanis remaining on the territory of Armenia.”

     

    Notes

    [1] See https://news.day.az/politics/407630.html (accessed 14 June 2013).

    AZERBAIJAN IN THE WORLD

    ADA Biweekly Newsletter

    Vol. 6, No. 12

    June 15, 2013

  • Create a situation which Tehran might find difficult to control

    Create a situation which Tehran might find difficult to control

    Rouhani 1Gulnara Inandzh

    Director, Ethnoglobus (ethnoglobus.az)

    An International Online Information and Analysis Center , mete62@inbox.ru

    (Baku- Tehran-Baku)

     

    The election of Hasan Rowhani as the new president of Iran is part of a much larger process: an effort by the political elite to recapture authority in the population by launching a top-down political transformation lest outside forces provoke one and create a situation which Tehran might find difficult to control.

    That transformation, one not often remarked upon by outsiders, reflects the fact that Iranian nationalism is today a more important force than is Islam and the country’s imperial ambitions are more important than Muslim brotherhood, however defined.  Those close to the Iranian political elite understand that, and they recognize as well that slogans against Zionism and the United States are no longer enough to satisfy the increasingly poor population of what should be one of the wealthiest countries on earth.

    The policies of incumbent Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, which have simultaneously led to international sanctions and massive corruption, have left Iranians angry, because they are bearing the burdens of his policies without gaining any of the supposedly positive achievements he liked to point to.  Consequently, they voted for Rowhani, but despite what many observers have said, they did so with the full approval of many around the top leaders who recognize that Iran cannot and must not continue as it has.

    One area where change is now likely is the relationship between the religious authorities and the state that was set up by Ayatollah Khomeini more than 30 years ago and has remained largely unchanged.  Iranians can be dissatisfied with the religious authorities, but all those with whom I have spoken willingly reassert their love for their government.  The national policy of the Iranian state thus rests on an imperial ideology as a necessary response to the ethno-psychology of the population.  And that state is prepared to make a correction on religion-state relations by taking that factor into account.

    Iranians will not support any actions that they believe harm the interests of the state and thus oppose any moves from the outside to oppose it.  That is something the West does not understand, but there is something else the West has failed to notice: the authorities in Tehran have developed political strategies to make mid-course corrections and even fundamental reforms.  And right now, as the election shows, they are in the middle of something that we are justified in calling a top-down transformation, a change in the key arrangements of the state without violence.

    The first step in this direction was paradoxically made by Ahmadinejad who deprived the Muslim leaders of their immunity.  The second was the victory of the United Front of Conservatives in the March 2012 elections, which led Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to reappoint a number of reformers from the administration of former president Ali Rafsanjani.  And the third step in this process was the explicit call by Hasan Rowhani for political and economic reform and direct contacts with the United States, two issues that had earlier been taboo.

    Rowhani’s election and in the first round at that shows that Iranians are ready for reform, and the support he has received from Ayatollah Khamenei shows that the reformists are winning ever more positions in Tehran and Qum and that the governing structure of Iran that Khomeini put in place after the 1979 revolution is going to change, albeit slowly and carefully lest they trigger instability.  As these changes are put in place, the Muslim leadership and the secular politicians will work in parallel, dividing the social-political and economic spheres.  Polls of Iranians carried out in Azerbaijan, Turkey and Iran show that a majority of them want to live in a secular society, but not to break altogether with their Muslim roots. 

    Anyone visiting Tehran can see evidence of that: The majority of women there wear not the chadra, but scarves and long dresses, but not those reaching the ground.  In some places, it is even possible to observe women who are not covering their heads, something that would have been unthinkable only a few years ago.  Such examples could be multiplied, and they suggest that Iran, all the rhetoric notwithstanding, is opening up to secular culture and lifestyle.

    Over the course of the last 30 years, a new generation of religious scholars in contemporary European dress has appeared in Iran.  Its members speak foreign languages, are not trapped by Muslim dogma, are open to Western scholarship, and are quite tolerant.  They and the new generation of Iranians, religious and non-religious alike, are going to lead Iran into a new stage of its history.  In sum, Iranians are effecting domestic transformation lest someone from the outside attempt to start that process.

    AZERBAIJAN IN THE WORLD

    ADA Biweekly Newsletter

    Vol. 6, No. 12

    June 15, 2013

  • The Azerbaijan-Turkey-Israel triangle both in Tel Aviv and in the Muslim Middle East

    The Azerbaijan-Turkey-Israel triangle both in Tel Aviv and in the Muslim Middle East

    Gulnara Inanc
    Director, Ethnoglobus
    An International Online Information and Analysis Center
    (mete62@inbox.ru)
    The first ever visit by an Azerbaijani foreign minister to Israel and Palestine, a visit all sides called historic, underscored the growing strategic partnership between Baku and its two partners in the Middle East.  The first person Elmar Mammadyarov met in Israel was the chairman of the Knesset Commission on Foreign Affairs and Defense, Avigdor Lieberman, who had long lobbied for close cooperation and a strategic partnership with Azerbaijan.  In large measure as a result of his efforts, earlier attempts by the Armenian lobby to raise the so-called “Armenian genocide” in the Knesset were blocked.  Last year, in response to the latest such attempt, Israeli President Shimon Peres and A. Lieberman, who was then Israeli foreign minister, openly declared that because of the country’s strategic partnership with Azerbaijan, the issue of the “Armenian genocide” would not be discussed in the Knesset.
    Mammadyarov arrived in Tel Aviv on March 24th, the very day Armenians have declared a memorial day for the “genocide.”  Armenian media on that occasion put out information about a Knesset discussion of the “genocide,” but that did not happen.  Undoubtedly, it was very important for Azerbaijan to receive reassurance that the recognition of the so-called “Armenian genocide” would not be considered in the Knesset.
    Among the notable outcomes of the Azerbaijani foreign minister’s visit to Israel was Baku’s declaration on his return that Azerbaijan is ready to sign a broad agreement concerning the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. [1] Israel beyond any doubt is not in a position to promise something regarding that conflict or to resolve it in some way.  But Tel Aviv is in a position to seek the broader support of Jewish groups around the world regarding the Azerbaijani-Armenian conflict.  And consequently, the growing ties between Azerbaijan and Israel open the way for progress in the talks just as was the case some five years ago.
    Earlier this year, the Jewish community of the United States held a conference on “Israeli Relations with the States of the South Caucasus.”  Avigdor Lieberman, with whom Foreign Minister Mammadyarov met in Israel, and President Shimon Peres have been devoting particular attention to the development of relations with the South Caucasus countries in general and Azerbaijan in particular. [2] Following his meeting with Lieberman, Mammadyarov went to Ramallah where the Palestinian authority declared its support for Baku’s position on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and on the issue of the so-called “Armenian genocide.”
    Azerbaijan supports the independence of Palestine and the division of Jerusalem, and in response to this support, it is seeking Palestinian backing on the two issues of greatest importance to itself.  A conference in Baku scheduled to be held later this summer can be considered part of the result of the Ramallah talks.
    Palestine enjoys authority and is at the center of attention of the Islamic world.  Azerbaijan, in turn, has grown into an economically and politically powerful country not only in the South Caucasus, but more broadly as well.  Rid al Maliki, the foreign minister of the Palestinian Autonomy, stressed this in his meeting with his Azerbaijani counterpart, noting that Azerbaijan enjoys authority in the leading international organizations. [3] Therefore, the support of Ramallah is significant, because it brings with it the attention of the Islamic and international community.  Thus, Azerbaijan was able to achieve its goal of gaining Palestine’s support for its positions.  In view of this, it is worth recalling the declaration made by Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister, Prince Haled ben Saud ben Haled, that the international community must mount pressure on Armenia to secure a settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict [4] and a second declaration by Iranian leader Ali Khamenei that “Karabakh is a Muslim land … something that is supported at the highest levels.”
    Both of these declarations can be seen as the result of Baku’s careful and balanced foreign policy.  Of course, one should focus attention on the fact that this historic visit to Israel took place after the Turkish-Israel rapprochement.  Interestingly, one of the clearest opponents of that rapprochement, A. Lieberman, nonetheless agreed with it.  The Israeli media suggested that he had not been informed about the plans for this new coming together.  Lieberman thus had to “close his eyes” and put out the red carpet for Mammadyarov.  Having lost its Arab partners after the Arab spring, Israel had no choice but to return to strategic relations with Turkey.  That, in turn, has increased the importance of the Azerbaijan-Turkey-Israel triangle both in Tel Aviv and in the Muslim Middle East.
    Azerbaijan’s geographic location next to Iran also increases its strategic significance, something that Israeli President Peres went out of his way to stress.  This does not mean that Baku offered or is planning to offer its territory as a place des armesfor a military operation against Iran.  Baku has repeatedly indicated that cooperation with Israel does not include that and is generally not aimed against Iran, even though many observers tend to see Baku’s cooperation with Israel as the former’s way of restraining Iran.
    Notes
    [1] See https://www.amerikaninsesi.org/a/elmar_memmedyarov/1649480.html (accessed 28 April 2013).
    [2] See http://izrus.co.il/dvuhstoronka/article/2012-02-28/17144.html#ixzz2QngVkiJZ (accessed 28 April 2013).
    [3] See  (accessed 28 April 2013).
    [4] See  (accessed 28 April 2013).
    AZERBAIJAN IN THE WORLD
    ADA Biweekly Newsletter
  • Azerbaijan and Turkey to cooperate in defense industry

    Azerbaijan and Turkey to cooperate in defense industry

    Azerbaijan and Turkey are going to cooperate in the sphere of defense industry. The corresponding document has been signed by the 2 countries during the IDEF-2013 exhibition.

    The exhibition held in the Turkish city of Istanbul has just ended. Azerbaijan has presented 130 products during the event.

    The exhibition is held once in 2 years. Azerbaijan takes part in the event for the third time.

    Source – vestnikkavkaza