Iran and the South Caucasian Conflicts

• George Sanikidze ^[1]
  1. [1] Giorgi Tsereteli Institute of Oriental Studies of Ilia State University
• Localización: Actas del X congreso de la Sociedad Española de Iranología (SEI): celebrado en Tbilisi los días 20 y 21 de octubre de 2022 / Tea Vardosanidze (ed. lit.), Gerardo Matallana Medina (ed. lit.), 2024, ISBN 978-9941-36-204-0, págs. 88-100
• Idioma: español
• Enlaces
  • Texto Completo Libro (pdf)
• Resumen

  • In the first part of the paper we examine Iran’s perception of the role of the foreign actors in the South Caucasus, different political vectors of the South Caucasian countries and Iran. The second part is dedicated to the study of Iran’s position concerning the conflicts in the South Caucasus. Primarily, this refers to the conflict of Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh near the Iranian border. In this case, Iran holds a relatively neutral position unlike Turkey, which openly supports Azerbaijan, and Russia, which, first of all, is trying to pursue its own interests.It is often noted that in the conflict Iran has a more pro-Armenian position. The fact that Iran may lean more on the side of Christian Armenia is sometimes considered as the expression of containment of Baku in case of irredentist activism in Iran’s Azerbaijan.It must be pointed out that there was no consensus either in the government or in the Iranian society concerning the Azerbaijan-Armenia 2020 War. After the re-establishment of Azerbaijani control over the border areas and Mountainous Karabakh, Iran was denied direct access to Karabakh.Iran holds a more careful position on the war of 2008 between Georgia and Russia. Firstly, this is determined by the fact that in this case Iran cannot contradict Russia, whose dominant position in the region is recognized by Iran. On the other hand, Iran still wants to maintain good neighboring relations with Georgia. Due to the above listed factors, the Iranian government practically refrained from assessing the conflict.