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Iran – Turkey rivalry boosts Russia’s influence
A closer look at Turkish-Iranian rivalry in Central Asia and the Caucasus and its impact on Russia
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
by Michael Alguire
While the global news media has given extensive coverage to the
geopolitics of energy resources in the former Soviet Empire, little
attention has been paid to the competition between Turkey and Iran in
Central Asia and the Caucasus, and its impact on Russia.
Firstly, Russia’s fear of a rising Turkic nationalism among its Turkic
minorities has been one of the factors that have led Russia to seek an
alliance of convenience with Iran. Secondly, while competition for
spheres of influence in the Caucasian and Central Asian regions exists
between all three powers (Russia, Turkey, and Iran), Turkey’s
alignment with the West on energy issues has served to create a common
interest between Russia and Iran in preventing the emergence of
Turkish and Western dominance over Caspian Sea energy
resources. Finally, Russia appears to be using ethnic tensions in the
Caucasus to secure its dominance of the region, and prevent the
European Union (EU), the United State (U.S.), Turkey, and Iran from
bypassing Russia in their quest for energy resources.
The origins of the Turkish-Iranian rivalry lie in the competition for
hegemony in the Middle East between the Ottoman and Persian empires
under Persia’s Safavid (1501-1724) and Qajar (1795-1925)
dynasties. From the late 19th century onward, several new factors
emerged that affected the nature of the rivalry. Firstly, during the
late 19th and early 20th century, there was the emergence of the
ideology of Pan-Turkism (which strives for the cultural and physical
unity of all peoples of Turkic origins). The second factor was the
founding of the present-day Republic of Turkey as a secular state
under the country’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, in the aftermath
of the First World War. The final factor was the Iranian revolution of
1979 that transformed Iran into an Islamic theocracy. All of these
elements coalesced to define the renewed Turkish-Iranian rivalry that
began with the formation of the states that compose the Commonwealth
of Independent States (CIS states) in the aftermath of collapse of the
Soviet Union in 1991.
The Soviet Union’s collapse left a power vacuum in Central Asia and
Azerbaijan that was quickly filled by Iran and Turkey. The rivalry
between the two countries has two-dimensions: firstly, each promotes
its own form of government i.e. Turkey advocates secular democracy,
while Iran promotes its model of Islamic government. The second
dimension involves the exploitation of ethnic and linguistic
ties. Turkey promotes Pan-Turkism, patronizing the Turkic-speaking
populations of Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan; Iran has
attempted to extend its influence into Tajikistan, whose inhabitants
are culturally Iranian and speak an eastern dialect of Persian. More
recently, Turkey has voiced its opposition to the Iran’s alleged quest
for nuclear weapons. This rivalry has multiple implications for
Russia, particularly with regard to Turkey’s position in this contest.
To begin with, the ideology of Pan-Turkism was created by Turkic
groups like the Crimean Tartars living in Russia during the late 19th
and early 20th centuries as a response to efforts by the Russian state
to assimilate them into Russian culture. Russia feared a revival of
this ideology after 1991. The present-day Russian Federation has
significant Turkic minorities living within its borders, and an
upsurge in Pan-Turkism could lead certain regions, such as Tataristan,
Baskirdistan, and Yakutistan, to seek independence. Turkey is also a
long-standing ally of the United States, and the U.S. has been trying
to extend its influence into the former Soviet empire (and
particularly the energy-rich Caspian Sea region), since the early
1990s. Furthermore, Turkey has also been working closely with the EU
in efforts to create a natural gas pipeline running from Central Asia
across the Caspian Sea, through Azerbaijan and Turkey into the
Mediterranean, thereby reducing the EU’s dependence on Russian energy
pipelines. In 2006, the EU and Turkey announced the approval of
Nabucco gas pipeline, which is scheduled to begin construction in 2008
and will route the gas of the Caspian region through Azerbaijan to
Austria, via Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, and Hungary. The pipeline is
scheduled to start transporting gas in 2011.
Yet Russia has managed to match this achievement. On May 12, 2007, the
governments of Russia, Turkmenistan, and Kazakhstan announced plans to
construct a natural gas pipeline that will pump gas from Turkmenistan
through Kazakhstan to Russia. Russia already buys Turkmen gas at
below-market levels, and also effectively controls Turkmenistan’s gas
reserves through its network of Soviet-era pipelines owned by Russian
energy giant Gazprom.
Thus, this newest pipeline will both increase Russia’ controls over
Turkmen gas reserves, as well as allow Russia to continue exporting
its own gas to Europe more profitably. While Russia has won an
important victory in the competition for Caspian region resources, the
struggle for these resources continues, particularly in the
Caucasus. In that region, Russia, Turkey, and Iran either have used or
appear to still be using ethnic tensions as a means to impede their
competitors’ ability to gain a solid handle on energy resources. These
ethnic tensions have a complex history.
After taking power in late 1917, Vladimir Lenin appointed Joseph
Stalin as the Commissar of Nationalities, responsible for carrying out
the new government’s policies towards the former Russian empire’s
numerous nationalities. Both Lenin and Stalin were committed to
retaining as much of the empire as possible, and Stalin adopted the
policy of `divide and rule,’ setting boundaries of the Soviet
republics in such a way as to leave large ethnic minorities in each
republic, separating ethnic groups across two or more republics. These
minorities would then serve as fifth column inside these republics,
preventing a particular republic from separating from the Soviet Union
in order to avoid potentially harsh treatment under a particular
independent republic’s ethnic majority. Such was the case with the
three breakaway regions in the Caucasus: Abkhazia and South Ossetia in
Georgia, and Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan.
Abkhazia was incorporated into Georgia in 1931 by Stalin, and in 1992
the Abkhaz began fighting for independence from Georgia (allegedly
with Russian assistance), which they declared in 1993. A CIS
peacekeeping force composed mostly of Russian soldiers has been
stationed in the region since 1994, and Russia continues to use a
military base at Gudauta, despite a 1999 treaty that committed the
Russians to abandoning the base. Russia has made it easy for residents
of Abkhazia to obtain Russian passports, which most people now
hold. In addition, the Russian ruble is widely used in the region.
South Ossetia, the other region which has broken from Georgia, was
originally part of a united Ossetia that was divided between the
Georgian and Russian republics by the Soviet authorities in the
1920s. The Ossetian struggle for independence from Georgia began in
1989, ending in 1992 with an agreement for the deployment of Russian,
Georgian, and Ossetian peacekeepers in South Ossetia. Russian
peacekeepers remain in the region today, although the Georgian
parliament has called for them to be replaced with an international
force.
As in Abkhazia, most South Ossetians have Russian passports and the
Russian ruble is commonly used in trade. In January 2006, the Georgian
government accused Russia of orchestrating several explosions on a gas
pipeline in North Ossetia, thereby sabotaging Georgia’s main gas
pipeline. The Georgians claimed that this operation was carried out in
response to the Georgian parliament’s demand that Russian troops be
removed from South Ossetia. Russia claimed that the explosions were
carried out by pro-Chechen insurgents. Russia has also pressured
Georgia to sell its pipeline network to Gazprom. The Russian military
presence in Georgia proper will end in 2008, when Russia will vacate
its two remaining military bases inside the country. However, so long
as Russia maintains its troops in these breakaway regions and supports
their separatist governments, it will be able to preserve its sphere
of influence in this part of the Caucasus as well as compete with the
United States (which is providing training and support to the Georgian
military) and Turkey (which serves as an exit point for the
Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline that transports oil under
Georgia). Russia will also be able to counter any Iranian initiatives
in the area.
Finally, there is the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabkh, a de facto
independent region that is surrounded by Azerbaijan’s territory. Like
Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the Soviet authorities established the
Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region within Azerbaijan in the early
1920s as part of a policy of `divide and rule.’ The Region was
populated predominantly by Armenians, and Armenian discontent with
this situation smoldered throughout the Soviet period. Ethnic
Armenian-Azeri frictions exploded into further violence in the late
1980s. As the violence escalated, the ethnic Azeri population fled
Nagorno-Karabkh and Armenia, while ethnic Armenians fled the rest of
Azerbaijan. Outside powers used these ethnic tensions to their
advantage.
Both Russia and Iran were angered by the staunchly pro-Turkish stance
which the Azeri government adopted in its foreign and domestic
policies following independence, policies which were formulated on the
basis of the Azeris being a Turkic ethnic group. Russia wished to
maintain its long-standing influence in the country. Iran wished to
use a common religious heritage (both Azerbaijan and Iran have Shi’a
Muslim majorities) to influence the country. It also strove to prevent
the rise of a strong Azerbaijan that could push for unification with
Iran’s own large Azeri population.
In pursuit of these goals, both Iran and Russia provided encouragement
and financing to ethnic communities inside Azerbaijan that were
resisting the government’s policy of `Turkification.’ To a certain
extent, this included the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabkh. The
Nagorno-Karabkh conflict ended in 1994 with the signing of a
Russian-backed ceasefire that left Nagorno-Karabkh under ethnic
Armenian control. Sporadic fighting has occurred since the ceasefire,
and in December 2006 the territory held a referendum in which 98% of
the voters supported a constitution that declares the region to be
sovereign state that is completely independent of Azerbaijan.
This development is interesting in light of the fact that Russia still
operates a military base in Armenia itself. Furthermore, in April
2006, Russia purchased Armenia’s pipelines and a power plant in
exchange for setting domestic Armenian gas prices at half of European
levels until 2009. This deal also gives Russia control of a pipeline
which runs from Iran into Armenia, allowing Russia further influence
over Iranian policy in the Caucasus. The Armenians welcome the Russian
military presence as a counterweight to its western neighbor and
diplomatic foe, Turkey. Thus, given that Armenia is already a
diplomatic ally of Russia, and in spite of Azeri government’s
insistence that the referendum was illegal, a resolutely independent
Nagorno-Karabkh could serve as a client state for the Russians inside
Azerbaijan, in the same way that Abkhazia and South Ossetia appear to
be serving as its client states in Georgia.
All of these separatist regions allow Russia to maintain its influence
throughout the Caucasus in absence of the direct territorial control
it enjoyed in the Soviet era. This apparent policy of `divide and
conquer’ may eventually lead to Russia gaining near complete control
of the energy resources of Central Asia and the Caspian Sea. Thus,
while the Turkish-Iranian rivalry has helped to make Russia and Iran
allies of convenience, Russia’s policy of `divide and conquer’ in the
Caucasus could lead to Iran losing the battle for definitive control
of the Caspian region’s energy resources.
Michael Alguire is a political analyst and Trinity College Scholar,
who recently completed a Specialist Program in History at the
University of Toronto. This was published at Robert Amsterdam’s site,
"Perspectives on Russia, Europe, and International Affairs."