Iran Fears Growing Israel-Azerbaijan Cooperation
Lt. Col. (ret.) Michael Segall, May 17, 2013
Jerusalem Issue Briefs Vol. 13, No. 12 17 May 2013
http://jcpa.org/article/iran-fears-growing-israel-azerbaijan-cooperation/

- The visit to Israel in April 2013 by Azeri Foreign Minister Elmar
Mamadyarov intensified growing Iranian concerns over the tightening ties
between Jerusalem and Baku, both of which view Iran as a threat. Iran’s
progress in its nuclear program and the failure of the nuclear talks with
the West have raised Tehran’s threshold of sensitivity about a military
attack on its nuclear facilities, and it increasingly fears that Azerbaijan
is turning into a base for such a strike.

- In recent months, Iran has stepped up its critical public tone toward Baku’s
“incautious” policy. Iran continues its covert subversive activity in
Azerbaijan including through Lebanese Hizbullah, which is providing
assistance to local terrorist and espionage cells. Iran’s aim is to build an
infrastructure for retaliation there in case it is attacked, and also to try
and influence Azerbaijan’s domestic political arena. Azerbaijan has exposed
and arrested a number of Iranians, Hizbullah operatives, and local activists
on suspicion of involvement in terror and subversion.

- Some 25 million Azeris live in northwestern Iran, forming the country’s
largest minority. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is of Azeri extraction. Both
Iran and Azerbaijan are Shiite, and both have territorial claims that
sometimes rise to the surface. Some in Iran refuse to accept the loss of the
province of northern Azerbaijan, which was conquered by the Russian Empire
at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The humiliating agreements which
the Persian Qajar dynasty was forced to sign are part of a legacy that the
Islamic regime seeks to replace with an ethos of resistance to foreign
forces at any price.

- Today, Iranian-Azeri relations are being influenced more and more by the
geostrategic environment, leading Tehran to a more menacing stance toward
what it sees as the threat posed by Israel via Azerbaijan. This could
include renewed attempts to strike Israeli and Western targets in
Azerbaijan.

- In 2008, 2011, and 2012, Iranian terrorist cells were uncovered there that
planned to hit Jewish, Israeli, and American targets, including
assassinating the Israeli ambassador to Baku and attacking Chabad’s Ohr
Avner Jewish school in Baku.

The Tip of the Iceberg

The visit to Israel in April 2013 by Azeri Foreign Minister Elmar
Mamadyarov, which involved meetings with the president, prime minister, and
security officials including the defense minister, again intensified Tehran’s
concerns over the growing ties between Jerusalem and Baku, both of which
view Iran as a threat, albeit to different extents. A telegram sent by the
U.S. embassy in Baku at the beginning of 2009 said the Israeli-Azeri
relationship was largely hidden from view and that Azeri President Ilham
Aliyev had described it as “an iceberg, nine-tenths of it is below the
surface.”1 Since then, considerable security, political, and economic
elements have been added to this relationship, only aggravating Tehran’s
fears about the more covert aspects.

This tightening of Israeli-Azeri relations augments Iran’s sense of
encirclement, which had indeed diminished since the United States’ exit from
Iraq (on Iran’s western border) but still exists. To the south, foreign
forces are active in the Persian Gulf; the base of the U.S. Fifth Fleet is
in Bahrain. To the east, NATO is still operating in Afghanistan. And to the
north, in Azerbaijan, Iran views the “Israeli threat” as the most tangible
of all, both in terms of a platform for a military attack and a base for
intelligence gathering and special operations against Iran, which claims the
assassins of its nuclear scientists came from Azerbaijan.

Furthermore, Iran, after its fleeting honeymoon with Ankara, sees the
gradually improving Israeli-Turkish relations under U.S. patronage as yet
another threat. Moreover, Azerbaijan, which is a member of the Organization
of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), has no embassy in Israel but is the source of
a large part of the oil that Israel consumes.

Backyard Games

The newspaper Jomhouri Eslami, which is identified with Hashemi Rafsanjani,
a former president and presidential hopeful for the presidential election in
June 2013 and head of the Expediency Council, wrote that Mamadyarov’s visit
to Israel and high-level meetings there had ramped up tensions among the
nations of the Caspian Sea littoral, and that the visit had occurred
precisely as Azerbaijan was covering up its trade and political relations
with Israel (“the Zionist entity”). The paper surveys Israeli companies’
involvement in Azerbaijan and asserts:

"Israel’s activity and presence in Azerbaijan on the northern border of Iran
is aimed at exerting pressure on Iran and conducting security and
intelligence activity against it and at getting prepared for the delusion of
bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities….Because of its strategic location,
Azerbaijan offers Israel a springboard for espionage, military activity, and
assassinating Iranian nuclear scientists."

The paper also refers to the military contracts signed between the two
states, amounting to “$1.6 billion in defensive missiles and UAVs.” The
article goes on to claim that Israel has also infiltrated Azerbaijan’s
cultural-religious activity in an effort to distance it from its Shiite
heritage. “In the last few years [former Azeri President] Heydar Aliyev and
his son [President] Ilham Aliyev have steadily contaminated this nation by
launching anti-Islamic and Zionist programs [such as] the Eurovision
contests, all with the aim of eliminating Islam and secularizing
Azerbaijan.”2

At the end of 2012, the Iranian satellite TV channel reported in English
that

"Following a rise in the U.S. radar activities in the Astara Rayon region in
Azerbaijan and the presence of Israeli military advisors, Azerbaijan has
been using Orbiter ultra-light drones to carry out operations along the
border with Iran and Karabakh…. Azerbaijan also uses Hermes-450 unmanned
aerial vehicles (UAVs) for control and surveillance missions".3

In recent months, Iran has stepped up critical public tone toward Baku’s
“incautious” policy and growing ties with Israel and the West – particularly
the United States. Meanwhile, it continues its covert subversive activity in
Azerbaijan including by means of Lebanese Hizbullah, which is providing
assistance to local terrorist and espionage cells. Iran’s aim is to build an
infrastructure for retaliation there in case it is attacked, and also to try
and influence Azerbaijan’s domestic political arena. Azerbaijan, for its
part, is wary of this Iranian activity, which is directed at both foreign
(Israeli and U.S.) interests and local political activists, and in recent
years has arrested a number of Iranians, Hizbullah operatives, and local
activists on suspicion of involvement in terror and subversion.

A Forward Attack Base

Iran’s progress in its nuclear program and the failure of the nuclear talks
with the West have raised Tehran’s threshold of sensitivity about a military
attack on its nuclear facilities, and it increasingly fears that Azerbaijan
may serve as a base for such a strike. Notably, a 2012 article in Foreign
Policy quoted senior U.S. intelligence officials saying Azerbaijan would
serve as a base for attacking Iran or for rescue operations after an Israeli
attack.4 In a 2012 meeting in Iran between Azeri Defense Minister Safar
Abiyev and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Abiyev asserted: “The
Republic of Azerbaijan, like always in the past, will never permit any
country to take advantage of its land, or air, against the Islamic Republic
of Iran, which we consider our brother and friend country.”5 Ahmadinejad,
for his part, visited Azerbaijan in October 2010 for the summit of the
Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO).6

Saeed Jalili, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC)
and Khamenei’s representative on the council and top nuclear negotiator, met
in late April 2013 with the visiting secretary of the National Security
Council of Azerbaijan and warned him of “Western powers’ efforts to
destabilize certain countries [meaning Azerbaijan] in order to prepare the
ground for their presence and secure their own interests in those
countries…. Examples of such actions can be found in the color revolutions
and some regional countries like Syria.” Jalili said that “opportunities and
mutual threats” could set the stage for more cooperation between Tehran and
Baku in various cultural, political and economic fields.7 In February 2013,
Jalili met with the Azeri president and declared that Iran and Azerbaijan
would not allow countries from outside the region to affect their
relationship.

A Common and Problematic Heritage

Azerbaijan borders two countries that have aspirations to recreate their
glorious past: Iran, once the center of the Persian Empire, of which
Azerbaijan was part; and Turkey, whose current leaders aspire to regain the
power of the Ottoman Empire, at least in terms of political influence and
leadership of the Muslim states. Between these two “giants” and the various
regional and ethnic conflicts related to them, Azerbaijan seeks to pursue an
independent, cautious foreign policy that takes into account the constraints
stemming from its geostrategic location.

The issue of Azerbaijan’s political, military, and economic relations with
the West since it gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 adds an
additional security-strategic layer to Azeri-Iranian ethnic-religious
tensions. The two countries share a similar ethnic-religious heritage.
According to several assessments, in northwestern Iran there now live close
to twenty-five million Azeris, forming the country’s largest minority;
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is of Azeri extraction and so is opposition
leader Mir Hossein Musawi.

Both countries are Shiite, and both have territorial claims that in times of
quiet are almost not mooted but in times of crisis again rise to the
surface. Some in Iran refuse to accept the loss of the province of northern
Azerbaijan, which was conquered by the Russian Empire at the beginning of
the nineteenth century as part of its conquests of the Transcaucasus region,
and they still see it as a historical Iranian province, though usually
repressing such aspirations.9

In 1813 and 1828, the Persian Qajar dynasty could not withstand the Russian
armies and was forced to sign the Gulistan and Turkmenchay agreements, which
divested the Persian Empire of Georgia and the lands that today are Armenia
and Azerbaijan. In today’s Iran, these humiliating agreements are still
synonyms for bowing to foreign forces and part of a legacy that the Islamic
regime still seeks to replace with an ethos of independence and resistance
to foreign forces at any price.

Greater Azerbaijan

Many in Azerbaijan have adopted a more or less dogmatically secular way of
life, to Islamic Iran’s disappointment, after almost seventy years of
secularization under the Soviet Union. At the same time, many still view the
region of Iranian Azerbaijan, what they call “southern Azerbaijan,” as a
part of greater Azerbaijan, and the considerable portion of the Azeri people
who live there as entitled to their own language and independence. Iran, of
course, opposes this, and recently stepped up arrests of Azeri activists in
its territory because of what it called their “setting up illegal groups and
anti-regime propaganda.”10 Ethnic tensions also arise at soccer matches. For
example, during a match last March between the Tractor Sazi team from Tabriz
in northwestern Iran and the Al-Jazira team from the UAE, tensions erupted
after a number of Azeri-Iranian fans waved a sign saying “South Azerbaijan
[i.e., northwestern Iran] isn’t Iran.”11

After a conference in Azerbaijan where participants called to annex the
Azeri-populated areas of northwestern Iran, Iran bitterly criticized the
participants and the Azeri leadership for facilitating the gathering. The
Azeri ambassador in Tehran was summoned to the Foreign Ministry for a severe
reprimand, and was called on not to allow any more such conferences on Azeri
soil since they could deal a fatal blow to the two states’ relations. The
spokesman of the public relations department in Iran’s Baku embassy
condemned the conference and said that “despite Tehran’s policy of promoting
friendly ties with Baku and although Tehran respects Azerbaijan’s
sovereignty and does not interfere in its internal affairs, certain
anti-Iran elements have unfortunately carried out hostile and offensive
measures by stressing unfounded territorial claims against Iranian
sovereignty.”12 In December 2012, the Iranian embassy in Baku denounced
anti-Iranian remarks made during the Convention of the World Azerbaijanis in
Baku and called the event a “plot aimed at harming the friendly relations
between Tehran and Baku” and at promoting “international Zionism and global
arrogance.”13

Members of the Majlis (parliament) in Iran were even less restrained in
their response. Mansour Haqiqatpour, head of the Majlis National Security
Committee, said that residents of several cities in Azerbaijan, including
Baku, who were separated from Iran during the Qajar reign and its war with
Russia, had expressed interest in returning to the Iranian fold and that
Iranian residents of Ardabil, Tabriz, Urmia, and Zanjan (which have Azeri
minority populations) had expressed their willingness to respond harshly to
the actions of the Azeri government and announced their readiness to reclaim
the towns stolen from Iran during the Qajar dynasty.14 In a similar vein,
Ardabil’s representative in the Majlis, Kamal Aladeen Firmouzan, said a
referendum was needed on whether to restore Azerbaijan to Iran and claimed
that Azerbaijan’s citizens openly and strongly desired this. He asserted
that the “abominable” United States and Israel, along with the “Wahabi
regime” (Saudi Arabia), had succeeded to penetrate deeply into Azerbaijan,
and hence Azeri politicians had started to show sympathy for “traitorous and
separatist elements and groups.”15

Hussein Shariatmadari, editor of the newspaper Kayhan, which generally
reflects Khamenei’s positions, also proposed appealing to Azeri officials to
hold a referendum among the residents of the areas that had been “taken”
from Iran, in which they would be asked if they wanted to be annexed to
Iran. Shariatmadari called this a “logical and basic step toward democracy”
and claimed Azerbaijan’s residents yearned to become part of Iran again. He
said the conference that was held in Baku, which demanded independence for
Iran’s large Azeri minority, was only one of many steps Baku was taking to
subvert the Azeri people’s religious feelings and their affection for
Iran.16

Religion and State

From time to time Iran criticizes the Azeri government’s anti-religious
policy and its measures against activists who seek to enforce the dress code
that is practiced by Iranian Shiites. Last year more than half the Majlis
members voted for a motion of condemnation after the death of activist Vaqif
Abdullayev. They claimed he had died for promoting the dress code and said
he had “sacrificed his life after he was subject to torture for defending
religious values.”17 The motion also criticized the holding of the
Eurovision 2012 Song Contest in Baku, calling it a display of immorality.
The head of the Tabriz Religious Seminary, Hojjat al-Eslam Seyyed Hussein
Seyyedi-Sani, asserted that;

"...the Eurovision that is held in the Islamic and historic city of Baku
will lead to a definite clash between the values of the West and those of
Islam….By hosting the contest Azerbaijan is seeking to disguise its real
face [of religiosity] and create a false pose of democracy and human
rights….One can see in the contest a Zionist plot aimed at dividing
Azerbaijan and distancing it from its Islamic heritage."

He also condemned the gay pride parade that was held there.18

Complex Relations

In 2012, the pro-reformist Iranian newspaper Aftab analyzed the complex
Iranian-Azeri relationship. The paper claimed that, while in recent decades
the two states had tried to conduct a careful policy and avoid exacerbating
tensions, it appeared that in recent years this approach was not working.
The deterioration was evidenced in harsh verbal attacks, the summoning of
ambassadors, and derogatory statements by senior military and political
officials. Aftab discussed the influence of the Arab Spring on the Azeri
opposition, the anti-religious measures of the government, and the
tightening of relations with the West and Israel, asserting that all this
had fostered growing tension and misunderstanding between Iran and
Azerbaijan.

The paper also said that, in the wake of the Arab Spring, Azerbaijan had
accused Iran of boosting its support for Shiite pro-Islamic opposition
groups; strengthened its measures against religious activists and especially
those with political tendencies; prohibited the wearing of the hijab in
schools and universities, while taking many other steps against religious
activity that had sparked protest among various elements in Iran; and,
finally, expanded its security cooperation with Israel, causing relations
with Iran to suffer.

On the one hand, the paper sums up, the two states’ stable relations in
recent decades were influenced by the basic factors of geography, common
cultural-religious characteristics, transportation, and trade relations
(which continue to exist and develop even today) – all this despite
Azerbaijan’s far-reaching secularization, the struggle over energy sources,
and Israel. On the other hand, dynamic factors and events in the
geostrategic environment had had negative effects and fostered tensions.19

A Change in Policy

In sum, Iran is conducting its relations with Azerbaijan with great
wariness. Its hopes that Azerbaijan, which was liberated from the yoke of
the Soviet Union, would choose Iran as a model were quickly dashed when Baku
instead chose a secular-Western direction. Baku’s insistence on taking this
independent course and enhancing its relations with Israel precisely when
the nuclear crisis is reaching its apogee has aggravated the two states’
relations, with harsh statements coming from Tehran – even as the two states
keep trying to project an atmosphere of relations as usual. The Azeri
foreign minister’s visit to Israel certainly set off warning lights in
Tehran.

Iranian-Azeri relations are being influenced more and more by the
geostrategic environment and less by the basic factors that had shaped these
relations for decades. So far Iran, amid severe Western sanctions and a
sense of isolation, has gone no further than verbal attacks and subversive
activities in Azerbaijan. Iran has constant friction with the West in the
Persian Gulf, and the West takes this friction into consideration in its
possible escalation scenarios over the Iranian nuclear program. Iran has
threatened several times to block the Strait of Hormuz and attack American
bases in the Gulf States. In the context of such scenarios, Azerbaijan has
not yet attained a central place on the West’s agenda. Russia, too, has to
be included in the broader picture; it takes great interest in what happens
in the southern Caucasus and in that regard is likely sooner or later to
break its silence.

The very strong Iranian reaction to the anti-Iranian conferences in Baku
(including calls to annex Azerbaijan) and the Azeri foreign minister’s visit
to Israel, which put the two states’ heretofore covert relations out in the
open, suggest that Iran could change its policy and may even open a front
with the West in Azerbaijan. Iran could also escalate its responses to
Azerbaijan’s measures; it views the country as a real threat not only in the
military-security sphere (i.e., to its nuclear facilities) but also in the
economic and, particularly, energy domain.

Thus, the geostrategic changes now occurring may lead Tehran to revise its
policy – from a combination of implied threats, careful diplomacy, and
economic inducements to a more menacing, resolute stance toward what Iran
sees as the threat posed by Azerbaijan. This, among other things, could
include renewed attempts to strike Israeli and Western targets (including
military ones) in Azerbaijan. In 2008, 2011, and 2012, Iranian terrorist
cells were uncovered there that planned to hit Jewish, Israeli, and American
targets in the country, including assassinating the Israeli ambassador and
attacking Chabad’s Ohr Avner Jewish school in Baku.

* * *

Notes

1. http://wikileaks.org/cable/2009/01/09BAKU20.html
2.
http://www.jomhourieslami.com/1392/13920209/13920209_09_jomhori_islami_siasi_0002.html
3.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2012/12/08/276935/israeliazeri-drones-spying-over-iran/
4.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/03/28/israel_s_secret_staging_ground?page=full&wp_login_redirect=0
5. http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=9012152197
6. http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=9107113118
7. http://www.ghatreh.org/view/44324/
8. http://www.mehrnews.com/detail/News/2005032
9.
http://www.azeritribune.com/index.php/newsline/top/caucasus/528-tangle-in-the-caucasus
10. http://www.hra-news.org/1389-01-27-05-25-54/15498-1.html
11. http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/en/article/20487
12. http://www.mehrnews.com/detail/News/2024690
13. http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=9107125612
14. http://www.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=13920114000194
15. http://www.asriran.com/fa/news/265404
16. http://www.kayhan.ir/920114/2.htm#other203
17. http://www.rasekhoon.net/forum/post/show/612100/1041346/
18. http://tinyurl.com/ccysyer
19. http://aftabnews.ir/vdcfm1dymw6dtea.igiw.html
===

About Lt. Col. (ret.) Michael Segall

IDF Lt.-Col. (ret.) Michael (Mickey) Segall, an expert on strategic issues
with a focus on Iran, terrorism, and the Middle East, is a senior analyst at
the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and the Terrogence company.