Media Guide: Iran and the Armenia-Azerbaijan Conflict
/By AIC Senior Research Fellow Andrew Lumsden
As world attention remains fixed on the ongoing war in Ukraine, a lesser-known conflict flared up in the Caucasus on September 12, 2022. Armed clashes broke out between Azerbaijan and Armenia, post-Soviet states with territorial disputes dating back to the late 1980s. The fighting is estimated to have resulted in at least 175 deaths, and comes on the heels of a six-week war between the two sides in 2020, which killed more than 6,500 people.
Iran shares a border and a long history with both warring parties and this Media Guide will explore the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict, Tehran’s relations with each side and how it has been involved in the conflict over the decades.
What Is The Conflict Between Armenia and Azerbaijan?
Tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan largely revolve around Nagorno-Karabakh, a disputed region located between the two countries. When the Soviet Union took control of the Caucasus in the early 1920s, it designated Nagorno-Karabakh part of the Azerbaijani Soviet republic despite its overwhelming ethnic Armenian majority, albeit with autonomous status.
As the Soviet Union began to disintegrate in the late 1980s, Nagorno-Karabakh’s population, estimated at 77% Armenian in 1989, demanded to be made part of the Armenian Soviet republic. Soviet authorities refused to redraw the borders, and violent clashes broke out in 1988. By 1991, the Soviet Union had collapsed and both Azerbaijan and Armenia became independent republics. In November of that year, Azerbaijan revoked Nagorno-Karabakh’s autonomy. In response, Nagorno-Karabakh formally declared its independence from Azerbaijan in January 1992, as the Republic of Artsakh.
Fierce fighting over control of the region between Azerbaijani government forces, Nagorno-Karabakh militants and their Armenian allies raged until an internationally-brokered ceasefire in 1994. However, Armenian and local forces were able to secure control of Nagorno-Karabakh and all or part of seven surrounding districts. In all, the war had left an estimated 20,000 dead and more than a million people displaced, including some 500,000 ethnic Azerbaijanis living in Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding areas, as well as more than 350,000 ethnic Armenians living in Azerbaijan.
In the nearly three decades since the First Nagorno-Karabakh War, there was general peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan, occasionally marred by minor clashes. However, the status quo would be violently upended in 2020. Azerbaijani forces launched a major offensive and managed to recapture most of the territory surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh occupied by Armenia as well as parts of the disputed region itself. A ceasefire agreement confirmed most of Azerbaijan’s gains and called for Russian peacekeeping forces to secure the remainder of Nagorno-Karabakh still uncontrolled by Azerbaijan. Brief fighting would again break out for two days in September 2022 when Azerbaijan made additional, though minor, territorial gains.
How Was Iran Involved In The First Nagorno-Karabakh War?
Iran borders both Armenia and Azerbaijan to the south, along a frontier spanning a total of over 500 miles. It also shares a long history with both countries. What are now the Republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan were once part of the ancient Persian Empire and were part of Iran as recently as the early 19th century when Iranian military defeats resulted in the cession of these territories to the Russian Empire.
Accordingly, Iran still has considerable populations of ethnic Azeris and Armenians. Ethnic Azeris make up an estimated 16% of Iran’s total population, and live primarily in the northwest of the country in a region known as Iranian Azerbaijan, which contains two provinces called East Azerbaijan and West Azerbaijan. Iran’s Armenian population is much smaller, numbering at about 150,000-200,000. Armenians however, make up the majority of Iran’s Christian population, and under the country’s constitution, the community is reserved two seats in Parliament.
These geographic and historic ties have given Iran a considerable interest in the conflict to the north. In 1992, Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani attempted to negotiate a ceasefire between Armenia and Azerbaijan during the First Nagorno-Karabakh War. A meeting between the three leaders took place in Tehran, and an agreement was signed on May 8, 1992. Fighting, however, continued. Iran did successfully establish and administer eight refugee camps inside Azerbaijan during the war. By 1994, an estimated 53,000 displaced Azerbaijanis were settled in Iranian-run camps where they received housing, food, healthcare and vaccinations. Iranian officials credit these measures with preventing a refugee influx like that seen following the wars in neighboring Afghanistan.
Some Iranian officials such as Major General Mohsen Rezaee, the former head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and Ayatollah Hassan Ameli, a member of the Assembly of Experts, a body which elects Iran’s Supreme Leaders, have claimed that Iran supplied military assistance to Azerbaijan during the First Nagorno-Karabakh War. Tehran has never officially confirmed this.
What Are Iran’s Current Relationships With The Warring Sides?
Whereas Iran largely played the role of neutral arbiter during the 1990s, the succeeding years have seen Tehran, though declaring its staunch opposition to major changes in the status quo in the Caucasus, having developed a clear, preferential relationship with one of the conflicting parties over the other.
Iran and Azerbaijan
It would perhaps be expected that Iran, a Shia Islamic theocracy, would enthusiastically back Azerbaijan, a predominantly Shia country over Armenia, a Christian nation. However, relations between Iran and Azerbaijan over the past three decades can best be described as strained and complicated.
Between the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 and a five-party agreement in 2018, delineation of territory in the Caspian Sea was a point of significant controversy between the states bordering the resource-rich body, including Iran and Azerbaijan. Iran claimed control of parts of the Caspian claimed by Azerbaijan and in 2001, sent naval forces to block an Azerbaijani oil exploration vessel. Future Azerbaijani Prime Minister Novruz Mammadov, who was the chief Presidential foreign affairs advisor at the time, accused Iran of trying to “stop [Azerbaijan’s] development,” and of treating the prospect of a “rich and independent” Azerbaijan as a “big threat.”
Mammadov also noted that Iranian officials are vehemently critical of Baku's positive relations with the United States and its allies, whom Tehran views as “our enemies.” Baku has long been actively supportive of many U.S.-led military efforts around the world. It deployed soldiers to Kosovo in the late 1990s, opened its airspace to American forces following the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States and contributed troops to U.S.-led operations in both Afghanistan and Iraq.
More recently, Azerbaijan’s deepening ties with Israel have added to frustration in Tehran. In the past decade, it is estimated that Israel has supplied nearly 30% of Azerbaijan’s imported major arms systems, such as drones, missiles and air defense systems. In 2012, Azerbaijan spent 53% of its defense budget, some US$1.6 billion, on an arms deal with Israel. In 2016, Azerbaijan spent nearly US$5 billion on purchases of Israeli arms and made up 17% of Israel’s total arms exports. Between 2016 and 2020, nearly 70% of Azerbaijan’s major arms systems came from Israel. Moreover, there have been reports, including from U.S. officials, that Azerbaijan has allowed Israel the use of military facilities in its territory, near the Iranian border. Baku strongly denies these reports and any suggestions that it would ever allow operations against Iran to be launched from its country.
Iran nevertheless, appears to believe reports of an Israeli military presence in Azerbaijan. In 2021, over Baku’s protests, it held military drills near the Azerbaijani border for the first time since the fall of the Soviet Union. Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Amirabdollahian said that Tehran will not “tolerate the presence and activity against our national security of the Zionist regime next to our borders and will take any necessary action in this regard."
Iran and Armenia
Since the 1990s, Iran and Armenia have shared an unlikely bond. Armenia is an overwhelmingly Christian society, with Christians making up over 90% of the population. In fact, Armenia was the first country in the world to declare Christianity the state religion, doing so in the year 301. Historically, Christian Armenians have faced periods of severe discrimination and persecution at the hands of various Islamic empires which dominated the country over the centuries.
During the First World War, the Ottoman Empire deported almost two million Armenians living in what is now Turkey to concentration camps in Syria. Between 600,000 and over one million Armenians are estimated to have died in the process through starvation, disease and massacres. Many surviving Armenians were subjected to forced conversions and enslavement.
Today however, Armenia considers theocratic Iran, a close and valuable ally. This relationship is born in part out of mutual necessity. After the First Nagorno-Karabakh War, Azerbaijan and its ally Turkey closed their borders with Armenia. With Armenia being a landlocked country and Iran isolated due to heavy U.S. sanctions, both countries saw each other as a vital economic link to the outside world.
Iran is Armenia’s third largest trading partner, with trade between the two countries valued at over US$500,000 in 2021. Since 2009, Iran and Armenia have partnered in what has been called a ‘gas for electricity’ scheme. Iran exports some 350 million cubic meters of natural gas to Armenia each year, about 15% of the country’s total annual gas imports. This gas is then used to supply power plants in Armenia which in turn send electricity to parts of Iran. As of 2019, Armenia exports about 350 megawatts of power to Iran per year. However, planned projects are expected to increase output to over 1000 megawatts.
Iran and Armenia have also provided each other with diplomatic support. In October 2022, Iran opened a consulate in Armenia’s Syunik Province. Syunik is a strategic region which borders Iran to the south, Azerbaijan to the east and the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic to the west. Nakhchivan is an exclave of Azerbaijan, and Baku wants a corridor in Syunik through which it can have free access to its exclave. Armenia’s Prime Minister has rejected the idea, saying “I want this to be very clear: we will not give any corridor to anyone through the territory of Armenia.” Azerbaijan’s President has said that Baku plans to create the corridor “whether Armenia wants it or not,” and that it will use force if necessary.
The opening of the Iranian consulate therefore, is widely seen as Tehran's demonstration of support for Armenia’s position. At the consulate’s opening ceremony, Iran’s Foreign Minister pledged that Tehran “has always been and will always be a key partner for Armenia.”
Armenia for its part, has bucked Western efforts to isolate Iran. In 2019, Yerevan ruled out participating in U.S. sanctions on Iran. Visiting Washington D.C in July of that year, Ararat Mirzoyan, Speaker of Armenia’s Parliament said that “we don’t want the United States to put pressure on Armenia for joining in its Iran sanctions agenda.” In November 2019, Armenia’s Prime Minister told U.S. officials that he plans not to reduce, but to “deepen not only economic but also political relations” with Iran. Since then Iran and Armenia have made extensive plans to expand bilateral trade including planning establishment of a joint industrial park, reducing trade barriers and growing the presence of Iranian commodities in the Armenian market.
How Has Iran Been Involved In Recent Armenia-Azerbaijan Conflicts?
Following Azerbaijan’s victory in the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War, Iran has been firm in insisting that no substantial changes to national borders in the Caucasus take place, particularly its border with Armenia. Tehran has heavily implied that it would intervene militarily if Azerbaijan threatened this border.
In September 2022, Major General Mohammad Bagheri, Chief of Staff of Iran’s Armed Forces warned that Tehran “will not tolerate changes in the borders through war” and “will not remain silent.” Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi said the same to his Azerbaijani counterpart in October 2022, warning that “any change in historical borders, regional geopolitics and Iran-Armenia transit routes is not tolerable.” Foreign Minister Abdolhahian, echoed these sentiments while visiting Armenia, saying that Iran respects “territorial integrity and internationally recognized borders,” and “regards the security of Armenia and the region as its own security.”
In fact, Tehran has already been accused of sending military forces into Azerbaijan. In 2021, government-linked Azerbaijani media reported that during the 2020 conflict with Armenia, Iranian troops crossed the Aras River into Azerbaijan and intercepted Azerbaijani units on their way to the front lines. Fearing escalation, Azerbaijani forces reportedly retreated and proceeded to their destination via a different route. The report further claims that Iranian forces withdrew the following day, after clandestine negotiations between the two governments. Iran is further accused of having “transmitted intelligence to the Armenians about the movements of the units of the Azerbaijani Army.”
Neither government has officially confirmed whether these events took place. However, in 2020, Tehran did issue public statements denying sending arms and military equipment to Armenia. Iran officially maintains that it wants only peace and security in the Caucasus and has made offers to mediate between Azerbaijan and Armenia.
Future Outlook
As 2022 nears its end, tensions between Iran and Azerbaijan have only increased. In October 2022, Iran conducted large-scale military drills on the Azerbaijani border. Satellite imagery suggests these drills included practice crossings of the Aras River. On November 8, Azerbaijan’s President warned that “those who conduct military exercises in support of Armenia on our border should know…nobody can scare us.” Moreover, Baku has further enraged Tehran by further deepening ties with Israel. On November 18, Israel approved the establishment of an Azerbaijani embassy in Tel Aviv, making Azerbaijan the first Shi’a majority country to establish an embassy in the Jewish state.
Meanwhile, state-linked media outlets in both countries have engaged in provocative rhetoric against the other. Calls have been broadcast in Azerbaijani media for Iran’s ethnic Azeri regions to secede. Azeri-language media in Iran has responded with calls for reunification of the Azerbaijani Republic with Iran.
Furthermore, Turkey’s signaling of its strong support for Azerbaijan and its plans for a corridor in Syunik threatens to escalate tensions further, and is cited as a potential explanation for Baku’s recent willingness to engage in openly defiant behavior and rhetoric towards Tehran.
While the extent to which the involved parties are willing to use force to match their increasingly heated rhetoric remains unknown, it is clear that absent international vigilance, vigorous diplomacy and good-faith negotiations between all conflicting sides, the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict has the potential to very quickly develop into a much broader and deadlier affair than it so far has been.
