ANSA English Media Service
January 25, 2005

IRAN-AZERBAIJAN: ALIYEV VISIT MARKS NEW AGE IN RELATIONS

TEHRAN

By Alberto Zanconato

(ANSA) – TEHRAN, January 25 – Iran and Azerbaijan, both
oil-rich Shiite countries on the Caspian Sea but divided by
contrasts in interests were trying to turn a new page in their
relations as Azeri President Ilham Aliyev visited Iran on Tuesday.

Tehran and Baku should remain side by side, Supreme Leader of
the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told Aliyev on
receiving him in Tehran.

Aliyev is on a state visit to the Islamic Republic only five
months after Iranian President Mohammad Khatami visited
Azerbaijan.

The bilateral relations were strained for several years, both
for the support which Tehran gave Armenia in the war for Nagorno
Karabakh, an enclave of Armenian majority in Azeri territory,
and for the division of the waters in the Caspian Sea, 13 years
after the disintegration of the Soviet Union.

The problem on the partition of the oil and gas deposits in
that basin brought the two countries on the brink of an armed
conflict four years ago when an Iranian military unit intervened
to block drilling by the Azeris in a contested sea territory.

“All the problems, including the one on the Caspian Sea, can
be resolved in a amicable way,” Ayatollah Khamenei said.

He warned Azerbaijan to beware of efforts of foreigners to
ruin the bilateral relations. That was a reference first of all
to the United States but also to Israel with which Baku has good
relations.

Azerbaijan keeps good relations also with Britain given the
fact that oil giant BP will lead the consortium of companies
which will exploit the Azeri oil. That deal should bring in the
next few years up to $90 billion to the country of eight million
which went out devastated from the disintegration of the USSR
and the war for Nagorno Karabakh with Armenia.

It is exactly on the Nagorno Karabakh issue that the
bilateral relations could make a decisive improvement.

Receiving his guest, Khatami used hard words to defend Baku’s
right to regain control of that enclave where more than 10 years
ago the Armenian majority proclaimed an “independent republic”
which no one has internationally recognised.

Answering a question of an Azeri journalist who compared the
Armenian occupation of Nagorno Karabakh with the Israeli
occupation of the Palestinian Territories, Khatami said there
were obvious differences but the occupation of only one
centrimetre from other’s territory should be condemned and the
international community should help put an end to the occupation.

That statement was a decisive step ahead after Baku had
accused Tehran for years of having lined up with a Christian
country in a conflict against a Muslim Shiite nation which cost
Azerbaijan at least 30,000 deaths and one million refugees who
moved to other parts of the country.

The war and the fall of the USSR made the Azeri gross
domestic product (GDP) fall by 60 percent between 1990 and 1995.

Aliyev thanked the Iranian authorities but also underlined
the complexity of the issue when he wished peace and stability
would return to the region but only after the rights of the
Azeri people will be recognised.

Azerbaijan has still to settle the issue on the Caspian Sea
with Iran which has not recognised the agreements between
Azerbaijan, Russia and Kazakhstan to which Turkmenistan could
also join.

Tehran was further annoyed by Azerbaijan’s decision to export
crude oil via a pipeline for $3 billion which will run through
Georgia and arrive at Turkey’s Mediterranean coast. That project
which has to start operation next summer excluded Iran as a
possible route for Azerbaijan’s oil sales abroad. (ANSA).