Tehran, Iran – Tensions between Iran and Azerbaijan have risen steadily in recent months and divisive incidents have become almost a weekly occurrence.
Iran’s foreign ministry promised “mutual diplomatic action” on Friday after Azerbaijan expelled four Iranian diplomats for “provocative actions” it failed to name.
Hours earlier, Azerbaijan arrested six of its own nationals, accused of having ties to Iran’s secret services and plotting a coup in the Caspian nation. It was the latest in a string of arrests in recent months, with Baku linking all suspects to Tehran.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, a close ally of Iran’s historic rival Turkey, blamed Tehran after a man stormed the Azerbaijani embassy in the capital in late January, killing the head of security and injuring others .
Iran said diplomatic relations would remain unaffected as the incident was the work of a lone gunman with personal motives, but Aliyev closed the embassy for denouncing the “terrorist” attack.
Azerbaijan has also criticized Iran for supporting Armenia in the decades-long conflict over the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Iran, on the other hand, which is home to millions of Turkish-speaking ethnic Azerbaijanis, has long accused Azerbaijan of inciting separatist sentiment within its northwestern border.
The Israel Factor
But even with all the bone of contention in bilateral relations, perhaps a rapidly growing relationship between Azerbaijan and Israel is what has irked Iran the most.
Tehran increasingly warned Baku against a warming towards Tel Aviv, but the inflammatory rhetoric reached new heights last month after top diplomats from Israel and Azerbaijan discussed “forming a united front” against Iran at a news conference.
Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov was in Tel Aviv to inaugurate his country’s embassy after Baku appointed the first-ever ambassador to Israel.
This new approach, Iran’s foreign ministry warned, could pose a threat to Iran’s national security that cannot be ignored.
A majority of politicians in Iran’s parliament also denounced Azerbaijan’s decision, saying in a statement that “the Muslims of the world will regard them as accomplices of the Zionist regime in the murder of and crimes against the oppressed Palestinians.”
There are several reasons and objectives behind the growing ties between Azerbaijan and Israel, not all of which are directly related to Iran, according to Vali Kaleji, a Tehran-based Caucasus and Central Asia analyst.
He told Al Jazeera that politically, Azerbaijan needs a Jewish lobby to counter Armenian influence in the West, especially in the United States, while economically Azerbaijan is a major supplier of oil to Israel.
“From a military point of view, the Republic of Azerbaijan, under the influence of the Armenian diaspora community, is unable to bring peace and get advanced military and defense equipment from European countries and America,” Kaleji said.
“In such a situation, Turkey, Israel and Pakistan have become the three main sources of defense and military needs of the Republic of Azerbaijan,” he added, noting that this is a major concern for Iran.
Will war come?
Tensions between Baku and Tehran have increasingly manifested themselves in military form, with both sides flexing their military muscles in exercises intended as direct warnings.
Both the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the military in Iran have held several rounds of high-level exercises in the northwestern parts of the country and near the border with Azerbaijan since the end of the Nagorno-Karabakh war in 2020, with demonstrations on the ground and in the air. possibilities.
The most serious came last October when the IRGC first built a pontoon bridge over part of the Aras River that marks parts of the long border between Iran and Azerbaijan.
Days later, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian was in the southernmost Armenian province of Syunik to send another direct message to Azerbaijan and Turkey by inaugurating a consulate and equating Armenian security with Iranian security.
The move was aimed at countering the “Zangezur Corridor” that Azerbaijan and Turkey want to build between the Nakhichevan exclave and mainland Azerbaijan, which would effectively sever an important Iranian transit link to the South Caucasus and beyond.
Kaleji said — similar to the ebb and flow of tensions between Tehran and Baku over the past three decades — the current escalation could eventually lead to a cycle of de-escalation.
“Although recent tensions are very serious, there are many factors that prevent military conflict, including economic and commercial interdependence, transit routes between Iran, Azerbaijan and Russia, and also Azerbaijan’s dependence on Iran’s communication route to reach Nakhichevan,” he said. he said.
He also pointed out that diplomatic channels remain open through the Azerbaijani consulate in Tabriz, in addition to the Iranian embassy in Baku and the consulate in Nakhichevan, despite the closure of the embassy in Tehran.
Turkey and Russia — which is moving closer to Iran after the war in Ukraine — could act as mediators, a role similar to the role China is currently playing in restoring ties between Iran and Saudi Arabia, Kaleji said.
“The fact is, however, that Turkey and Russia, unlike Iran, do not have a threatening perception of Israel’s role in the Republic of Azerbaijan, the Zangezur corridor and the threat of the common border between Iran and Armenia,” he said. the first step would be to understand those concerns and possibly follow up with joint regional discussions.