Ever since achieving independence from Soviet Union in 1991, Azerbaijan has had a strained relationship with its southern neighbor Iran. The relations have been marred by divergent ideological leanings and political objectives. Azerbaijan’s secular nationalism, which included a heavy dosage of anti-Iranianism, sharply contrasted with the religiously driven Iranian ideology that emphasized the importance of Islamic unity and chastised nationalism and secularism as Western imports (“Iranian Commentary,” 1993).
Azerbaijan's Irredentism Towards Iran
Azerbaijan’s ideological vehemence was embodied in the persona of its president Abulfaz Elchibey, an ardent nationalist and secularist known for his passionate views and lack of diplomatic savvy (Souleimanov, 104). This was especially evident in Elchibey’s attitude toward Iran’s Turkic populated northwestern provinces that border Azerbaijan on the south.
The Azeri president often referred to the Iranian region as South Azerbaijan, accusing the Islamic government of abusing the country's Azeri Turks and claiming that the provinces would soon be unified with the Republic of Azerbaijan (Hiro, 255). Azerbaijan’s irredentism towards northwestern Iran foreshadowed the tensions in Azeri-Iranian relations for years to come, sowing seeds for an eventual transformation of Azerbaijan into an American ally against the Islamic state.
Iran's Support of Armenia During the Nagorno-Karabakh War
While trying to rouse a separatist movement in northwestern Iran, Azerbaijan was dealing with one within its own borders. In the dying days of Soviet rule in the South Caucasus, Armenians in the western Azeri enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh had been campaigning for separation from Azerbaijan and unification with Armenia, which borders Azerbaijan on the west.
Soon after both states shook off the communist shackles in the early 1990s while still quarreling over the region's political status, Armenian forces occupied Nagorno-Karabakh and effectively resisted Azerbaijan's efforts of reclaiming it. The conflict was frozen, but far from resolved, in 1994, with Nagorno-Karabakh and several surrounding regions falling under Armenian control, a status-quo which persists to this day.
The Nagorno-Karabakh war further exacerbated Azeri-Iranian tensions. The conflict became a timely opportunity for Iran to hinder Azerbaijan's emergence as a prosperous state that could prove appealing for Iranian Azeris. Iran considered such developments as detrimental to its internal stability and territorial integrity. Iran essentially feared that, as Middle East analyst Dilip Hiro put it, “The emergence of a strong, independent Azerbaijani republic—whether Islamic or not—would fan the flames of Azeri Nationalism within Iran” (293).
Thus, in an ironic ideological twist, a Shi'a Iran tacitly supported Christian Armenians at the expense of their Shi'a brethren in Azerbaijan during the conflict. Throughout the war, Iran was widely suspected of supplying Armenians with various war materials, as well as gas, developments that intensified the anti-Iranian sentiment among the Azeris. (“Azerbaijanis accuse Iran”, 1992).
A Temporary Improvement in Relations
Azeri-Iranian relations saw an improvement towards the mid 1990s. Azerbaijan’s nationalist fervor was toned down following a coup that replaced Elchibey with the shrewd and pragmatic Heydar Aliyev. Along with his similarly pragmatic Iranian counterpart Akbar Rafsanjani, Aliyev sought to advance the tarnished ties between the two Shi’a Muslim states (Souleimanov, 104).
Azerbaijani officials largely abandoned Elchibey's claims to Iranian Azerbaijan and Iran backed off its support for Islamist movements within the Azerbaijani Republic. Close cultural and historical connections between the two states were emphasized to bridge the political and ideological gaps in Azeri-Iranian relations, and some progress was made in economic ties. However Azerbaijan's ambitions to invite American influence eventually overrode the necessity to maintain amiable ties with its large southern neighbor.
Contract of the Century
By the mid 1990s Azerbaijan’s oil industry, which was closed to foreign firms during the Soviet era and later hampered due to the Nagorno-Karabakh War, was becoming rapidly revitalized. The small Turkic state was a major supplier of Communist Russia's oil since the 1920s and by the 1990s most of the country's oil reserves remained in its section of the oil rich Caspian sea.
Several Western firms showed growing interest in developing Azerbaijan’s oil fields, including BP and a number of American companies. Iran, seeing Azerbaijan's energy exporting potential as an opportunity to expand its own role in the Caspian region, also showed significant interest in the enterprise.
Initially Azerbaijani officials were open to Iran's ambitions. On November 1994 Azerbaijan signed a major development deal with the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), which accorded the latter with a 25% share in the international consortium for the exploitation and transport of Azerbaijani oil. Known commonly as the Contract of the Century, the consortium was mainly composed of Western firms, with American firms owning a 40% share (Souleimanov, 104).
Coinciding with the Contract of the Century were growing US sanctions against Iran during the first term of the Clinton administration, which prevented US companies from participating in joint ventures with Iranian ones. Thus the US government threatened Azerbaijan that if it didn’t expel NIOC from the consortium, American oil companies would withdraw from it (Souleimanov,104). Faced with this dilemma, Azerbaijan caved in to American pressure and terminated its agreement with the NIOC.
Azerbaijan’s decision to exclude Iran from the Contract of the Century dealt a major blow to Azeri-Iranian relations. Azerbaijan had shunned its neighbor in order to acquiesce to the demands of a state branded by Iran as the enemy of the Islamic republic. Aliyev, who only a year earlier appeared to have committed himself towards bettering the ties between Iran and Azerbaijan, was now viewed as an American puppet among the Iranians.
Ultimately Azerbaijan's desire of becoming a progressive Western nation that could benefit from America's political influence and investment meant that it had to distance itself from the state strongly opposed to America's presence in the region. From then on, Azerbaijan had to maintain a precarious balance between its ambitious alliance with the US and tense, but unavoidable relationship with Iran.
Sources
- Azerbaijanis accuse Iran of helping Armenians. (1992, July 10). Interfax News Agency, p. SU/1429/C1/1
- Hiro, D. (1992, September 14). The Azerbaijan Question. The Nation, 255.
- Hiro, D. (1994). Between Marx and Muhammad—The Changing Face of Central Asia. London: Harper-Collins.
- Iranian commentary says Arabism is in its death throes. (1993, September 13). IRNA News Agency.
- Souleimanov, E. & Ditrych, E. (2007). Iran and Azerbaijan: A Contested Neighborhood. Middle East Policy, 14(2), 101-116.
Enver Guseynov - I majored in International Affairs with emphasis on Middle East and have written several research papers and articles on the region.
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