Eurasia Daily Monitor, DC
May 27 2005

TALYSH ISSUE, DORMANT IN AZERBAIJAN, REOPENED IN ARMENIA

By Vladimir Socor

Friday, May 27, 2005

On May 20-22, in Armenia’s resort town of Tsaghkadzor, an event
billed as the “First International Conference on Talysh Studies” was
hosted by Yerevan State University’s Iranian Studies Department and
the Yerevan-based Center for Iranian Studies. Almost certainly, some
political circles in Armenia were behind this initiative. The
conference appeared designed at least in part to resurrect the issue
of autonomy for the Talysh ethnic group in Azerbaijan.

Such intentions draw inspiration from the would-be “Talysh-Mugan
Republic,” declared on June 21, 1993, in southeastern Azerbaijan by a
group of ethnic Talysh officers under the leadership of Colonel
Alikram Gumbatov. Their rebellion was correlated with a massive
Armenian offensive on the Karabakh front and seizure of territories
deep inside western Azerbaijan by Armenian forces. The Talysh rebels
proclaimed the independence of a seven-district area in southeastern
Azerbaijan, but did not elicit significant support among their own
ethnic group. On August 24 that year, Azerbaijani-loyal troops put an
end to the Talysh “republic” and arrested its leaders. Gumbatov,
sentenced to imprisonment for treason, became a cause celebre as a
“political prisoner” during the ensuing decade.

A self-styled Talysh National Movement surfaced unexpectedly for the
purposes of the conference just held in Armenia. TNM leader Fahraddin
Abbos-Zoda and several members arrived from Azerbaijan to participate
in the conference. Members of a Talysh diaspora group from Moscow
also participated, alongside academic experts from Armenia and Iran.
The latter country has its own Talysh minority, near the
Iran-Azerbaijan border.

Abbos-Zoda and others told the conference that the Talysh are
“oppressed” in Azerbaijan and called for autonomy of the
Talysh-inhabited area. The TNM asked the conference to appeal to the
United Nations, the OSCE, and other international organizations “to
help put an end to violations of the basic rights of Talysh in
Azerbaijan.” This seems to have been the initial goal of the
conference organizers. However, the participants from Iran, where the
Talysh are not recognized as an ethnic group, blocked that proposal.

The conference in Armenia did resolve to found an International
Talysh Association, elected the association’s steering committee, and
announced plans to hold follow-up conferences and publish reference
material on the Talysh with a view to helping preserve their ethnic
identity, language, and cultural heritage.

A Moscow-based, obscure “Party for Equality of the Peoples of
Azerbaijan,” formerly known as the Talysh People’s Party, has
distanced itself from the conference in Armenia. The party described
the Moscow Talysh who attended that conference as “nationalist
adventurers.” The party professes loyalty to a “multi-national
Azerbaijan,” seeks broader opportunities for Talysh self-expression,
and has entered dialogue with the state authorities.

The Talysh are a largely agricultural, Shia Muslim population,
speaking dialects closely related to Farsi. They reside for the most
part near Azerbaijan’ border with Iran, around the towns of Lerik,
Lenkoran, and Astara on the Caspian Sea. Azerbaijan’s official
statistics put the number of Talysh at approximately 80,000. Some
Talysh estimate the size of their group at up to half a million in
Azerbaijan (and a comparable number across the border in Iran). The
attempt by unidentified circles in Armenia to reopen the dormant
Talysh issue coincides with reports of significant progress in the
negotiations with Azerbaijan over Karabakh, and may be designed to
complicate the overall situation.