IRAN PROTEST TO BAKU OVER OIL ACTIVITIES IN THE ALBORZ AREA
TEHRAN 23 July (IPS) Iran protested angrily to neighbouring Republic of Azerbaijan over information that Azerbaijan National Oil Company (ANOC) and unnamed foreign firms are about to start preliminary studies in the Alborz oil region.
"Deputy Foreign Minister for European and American Affairs Ali Ahani summoned on Saturday the Azeri charge d'affaires in Tehran and handed him a strong objection following receiving information on the ANOC and other foreign firms intention to carry out exploration studies in the Alborz oil region", the official Iranian news agency IRNA reported Sunday.
The disputed Alborz oil fields, believed to contain large oil reserves, are situated in the Caspian Sea and shared between Iran and Azerbaijan.
The message stressed Iran's firm resolve in not permitting foreign countries or companies to engage in any activity that is against its national interest. ''Otherwise, Iran will hold Azerbaijan responsible for any such acts'', it warned.
Ahani reiterated that any contracts inked by foreign firms to operate in the region are void of credibility. ''Iran is determined to defend its rights,'' IRNA quoted him as having told the Azeri diplomat, without spelling out what Iran would do, or can do, in case Azerbaijan carry out activities in the area.
Iran insists on equal share of 20 per cent of the Sea’s resources or respecting agreements signed between Iran and the former Soviet Union.
The motives behind Iranian warning and protest is that under this proposal or the former Iran-Soviet Union accords, the whole of the Alborz area falls under Iranian sovereignty while sharing the waters according to the size of a country's length of its coastal line, Iran’s part would be reduced to 13 per cent, with a portion of the disputed region going to Azerbaijan.
Actually, and to Iran’s chagrin, all other bordering nations, meaning Azerbaijan, Russia, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan have already delimitated their respective zones of activities in the oil and gas-rich lake, the greatest in the world.
Contrary to Iran that forbids foreign oil firms to invest in the country’s nationalised energy resources, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan have opened their doors wide open to western oil companies, including American giants that encouraged by their government, are also construction new pipe lines bypassing Iranian territory, depriving the regime from huge transport royalties.
The five littoral states are scheduled to meet in the Turkmen capital Ashkhabad in October to decide on a legal regime for the waters.
The Iranian Oil Ministry also protested to foreign companies prospecting in Iran's claimed 20 percent sector of oil-rich Caspian Sea, saying any "unauthorised exploration is illegal", failing however to say who must "authorise" prospecting in the region and who, or which country decides what is legal or illegal.
In a statement, made available to IRNA, it said, "any contract signed with other countries in the sector (which is owned by Iran) is invalid."
"The authorities will stop the prospecting activities of any company in the mentioned (Iran-owned) sector and the oil ministry will no more enter into a contract with such companies", it warned, again stopping short of saying what kind of action Iran could or would take stopping operations.
"Iran has no means to stop the Azeris going ahead with their planned studies in the region and any use of military force could trigger a regional war, with Turkey, the United States and Israel all rushing to help Azerbaijan, while it is very doubtful that Russia or even Armenia would actively side with the Islamic Republic", warned an Iranian political analyst.
Besides this dispute, the Islamic Republic is also accusing Azerbaijan of not only satisfied with having close relations with the Washington and Tel-Aviv, but also offering military bases to the US-dominated North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO).
Iran’s leader Ayatollah Ali Khameneh’i in May reiterated that the Caspian Sea should remain a non-military zone.
The Azeri Ambassador to Iran, Abbasali Hasanov was not in Tehran at the time, being in Baku for the visit of Hojjatoleslam Hasan Rohani, the secretary of the Supreme Council for National Security.
During his visit to Baku, Mr. Rohani was reminded by Azeri President Heydar Aliyev that his country would never become a religious state like Iran nor will it cut off relations with the United States or Israel, despite pressure from Tehran".
"We are following the path of secularism and will continue to follow that path of statehood", Mr. Aliyev said told his Iranian guest, according to the official government newspaper.
The Islamic Republic of Iran and the staunchly secular Republic of Azerbaijan also traded accusations of supporting each other’s enemies. "As Mr. Rohani was objecting to Azerbaijan’s friendly relations with Israel, a Middle East nation Iran wants to eradicate from the map of the world, Baku cited Tehran’s support for Armenia" the Azeerbaijan News Service (ANS) said.
The agency also quoted Azerbaijan’s Foreign Minister Velayat Guiliev as having observed during talks with Mr. Rohani that Baku’s failure to open an embassy in Tel-Aviv was not the sake of Iranians but due to "technical problems only".
"It should be noted that the head of Azerbaijan’s foreign diplomacy didn’t exclude that the nation would open its embassy in Israel in future", ANS bluntly said.
Many Azeri badly resents the open political, financial and military backing the Islamic Republic provides for the Christian Orthodox Armenia that has occupied large portions of Azeri territories in Nagorno-Karabakh, dealing a severe blow to the proud and moral of the Azeri.
Azeri officials say to oppose the Tehran-Moscow-Yerevan Axis; they have no other choice but to get support from powers like Washington, Tel-Aviv or Ankara, now Baku’s main ally and backer.
They also accuse Iran of supporting and financing Azeri Islamist groups aiming at creating a similar theocracy like the one in power in Tehran.
On the other hand, there are many Azeri nationalists on both sides of the border who envisage the creation of a Greater Azerbaijan made of the two parts.
Iran and Azerbaijan share close historical, religious and cultural affinities. In both countries most people are Shi’ite Muslims and Iran has a sizeable ethnic Azeri population.
But due to lack of clear cut diplomacy, a dramatic shortage of career and experienced diplomats and experts in the one hand and efforts by Iranian ruling clerics at Islamising the newly independent nations of Central Asia on the other, Iran was never able to profit from the traditional historical, cultural, religious and ethnic bounds that linked Iran with these nations, formerly part of the Iranian Empire, most particularly Azerbaijan, where most of the population is Shi’ite, Iranian analysts and experts noted.
"There is nothing new in the latest row between Iran and Azerbaijan. The difficulties do not come from Iranian religious propaganda in Azerbaijan or Baku’s ties with Israel, but what worries genuinely the Iranians are Azerbaijan’s provocations in the one hand and the situation in the Caspian on the other", observed Mr. Mohammad Arrasi, a US-based Iranian expert on the area.
He said some 47 Azeri-language publications registered in Azerbaijan floods Iranian Azeris with calls for Urtulus, or the "liberation" of Iranian Azerbaijan and its merging with the Republic of Azerbaijan.
"By tying its policy to that of Russia in the region in the one hand and becoming the flag bearer of anti-American, anti-Israeli crusade, a weak and isolated Islamic Republic that has also a very bad reputation and is led by ignorant clerical leaders who are afraid to tell the truth to the people is playing with fire, fuelling a very dangerous and serious threat menacing the integrity of the nation", he noted.
"By Russianising its policy in the region, by forming odd alliances with Armenia, Russia and Greece to counter the expanding influence of the US-Turkey-Israel and Azerbaijan Axis, the ruling ayatollahs are exposing Iran wide open to all kind of provocations, including a military showdown, with all the consequences it could have for the future of Iran", Mr. Arrasi, himself an Iranian Azeri, observed.
Meanwhile, and coming amidst this latest tension, Iran, Armenia and Greece on Sunday signed a memorandum of understanding on expansion of trilateral cooperation particularly in the area of carrying out joint projects, to be inked by the three sides today, Monday.
Stressing on the importance of trilateral cooperation in the field of air transportation, civil aviation, post and telecommunication cooperation, the three countries called during the 4th session of a trilateral meeting for removal of the existing obstacles in the way of educational and technical cooperation in the area of civil aviation and air navigation, IRNA reported.
Welcoming print of joint stamps between the three countries, Iran, Armenia and Greece also called for supporting each other's stands at international bodies.
Anyhow, the coincidence between Iran’s new warnings to Azerbaijan with the tension-riddled visit of Mr. Rohani to Baku shows how difficult and complicated Iran-Azerbaijan relations have become. ENDS IRAN AZARBAIJAN TENSIONS 23701