 And thanks to the first panelists for taking their seats. My name is Andy Cuchins. I'm the director of the Russian Eurasia Program here at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. And first of all, allow me to apologize for my tardiness today and being caught up in traffic and causing us to start about 10 or 15 minutes late. I think we have a really interesting program this morning. The Russia Eurasia Program at CSIS has done a lot of work in this region over the past few years looking closely at the North Caucasus, the South Caucasus, looking at the interaction of the North Caucasus, the South Caucasus, and regional powers, influential regional powers around it in a paradigm we called the Big Caucasus. We've also explored this in some detail in a project that looks at the nexus between Turkey, Russia, Iran relations. One thing we have not done, and thanks to the visit of the Center for Strategic Studies in Azerbaijan in Washington this week, is have an opportunity to look at closely the relationship between Iran and Azerbaijan itself. This is a bilateral relationship that has implications for domestic politics in both countries. It's a relationship that clearly has implications for security and economic issues, political issues in the South Caucasus, as well as in the greater Middle East, as well as on more global issues such as nuclear non-proliferation and more specifically the Iranian nuclear program. So with great pleasure, I want to welcome and invite to the podium the director for the Center for Strategic Studies, Farhad Mamadov, who will make some introductory remarks to launch our conference and then we'll move into the first panel. Dr. Mamadov? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to welcome you on behalf of the Azerbaijani delegation and the Center for Strategic Studies of Azerbaijan and to thank you for organized conference on Iranian-Azerbaijani relations at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. I would like to say first of all that I am speaking at the event as a scholar and the views expressed herein are my own and don't necessarily represent the views of the government of Azerbaijan. History is a very important factor in our region, just like the other regions of the East. The majority of disputes and disagreements have a historical background. Looking back, we can see for example that for nearly a thousand years Iran or the geographical territory known as Iran was ruled by Turkish dynasties. For instance, the Afghan seat of Ghazni was recently declared a center of Islamic civilization by UNESCO honoring the 12th century Ghazni dynasty, Turks by region, whose territory included present-day Iran. These and other Turkish dynasties are also the founders of the modern Azerbaijan ethnicity. When it comes to Iran, we can see that Iran began to be associated with the Persian element and Persian identity only after the Pahlavi dynasty came to power in the early 20th century. Today, according to various sources, Iran is home to 20 to 25 million people of ethnic Azerbaijani origin. Most of them consider Iran as their own country. The history of Azerbaijan indicates that after the Russian-Iranian war of 1828 and the signing of the threat of Turkmenchi, historical Azerbaijan was divided and a large part of it remained within Iran. As a consequence of the agreement, Armenian immigrants from Iran and countries in the nearest arrived in northern present-day Azerbaijan. That may add that I use that term in a geographical, not political, thing. Thus, the beginning of the 19th century marked a turning point after which we can start talking about the emergence of Iranian-Azerbaijan relations. Iran's attitude towards northern Azerbaijan as part of the Russian Empire was contingent on its attitude towards the southern part of Azerbaijan. In the early 20th century, the Azerbaijanis of the north and south had unprecedented contact. Azerbaijan's declaration of independence stated that immediate measures were to be taken to establish friendly relations with bordering nations. Contrary to the Azerbaijani government's attempt to establish normal diplomatic relations with neighboring countries, Iran soon demonstrated its anxiety concerning the creation of a state with the name Azerbaijan. The Iranian side predicted that the Azerbaijan Republic would sooner or later have influence in south Azerbaijan. During the Paris Peace Conference at the beginning of 1919, Iran presented an official memorandum of light of these wearers. After the Soviet occupation of Azerbaijan in 1920, the relations between Iran and Azerbaijan became the bilateral relationship between the Soviet Union and Iran. It might be useful to recall the Great Liberation Movement for the rights of the Azerbaijanis, which started in southern Azerbaijan at the end of World War II in 1945 and received support in the north. Nevertheless, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, relations between Iran and Azerbaijan started to develop. In 1991-1993, nationalist sentiments in support of a Turkish-oriented national identity were a food in Azerbaijan. This led some caution on Iran's behalf. During the stage of active hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh, Iran's actions were limited to calls for a peaceful settlement. But the opinions of the Iranian government were angled toward weakening Azerbaijan's position. For example, the loss of the Azerbaijani town of Shusha in Nagorno-Karabakh occurred immediately after peace talks held in Iran, during which the occupying Armenian armed units were able to regroup. Thus, Iranian-Azerbaijani relations are characterized by ups and downs, occasional stabilization and rising tensions. To illustrate these thesis, there are several dimensions of the relationship that can be reviewed. First of all, Iran's attitude to the contested legal status of the Caspian Sea and division of Caspian energy resources, Iran's vision of the Armenian-Azerbaijani-Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, and Iranian-Azerbaijani relations in the context of the regional and global geopolitics. On the issue of the legal status of the Caspian Sea and the division of its energy resources, Iran has never been a major player because no matter how many times we hear about the discovery of new superfields of hydrocarbons, no significant reserves of oil and gas have been found in Iranian sector of the Caspian Sea. Yet, the exploration, production and transformation of Caspian energy resources were the subjects of several diplomatic notes sent by Iran in the middle 19th. To this day, Iran has not backed down from its position on the legal status of the Caspian Sea, which has delighted negotiations and means that this issue remains on the agenda of the littoral countries. In the 19th, Iran was one of the Azerbaijan's top trade partners. But during the past decade, Iran has gradually lost this position, whereas in 2007 the volume of trade between the two countries amounted to $540 million. In 2011, it was just $305 million. Azerbaijan's total turnover by the end of 2011 amounted to more than $36 billion, of which Iran's share was only 0.8%. Further, in 2011, Iran was ranked just 19th among Azerbaijan's trade partners and in 23rd in 2012. According to Iranian statistics, Azerbaijan is not among Iran's top 10 trading partners. Iran's position on the Armenian-Azerbaijanian-Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is one of the most important factors of Iranian-Azerbaijan relations. As a result of the Armenian occupation of 20% of Azerbaijan territory and the ethnic cleansing of Azerbaijanis resulting in a million Azerbaijanis becoming refugees and IDPs, Armenia's border with Azerbaijan and Turkey have been closed for about 20 years. There are two out of the four countries with which Armenia shares a border, thus Armenia's relations with Iran and Georgia are vital. This is well understood in Tehran, which shows significant interest in relations with Armenia. Although Iran has formally expressed support for the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan along with the Minsk Group co-chair countries, it is not taking effective steps to punish the aggressor. On the contrary, Iran and Armenia have dramatically increased their trade in recent years. Whereas in 2011, the volume of bilateral trade amounted to $335 million, recent data shows it has reached more than $500 million. Both sides have declared their intention to increase this to $1 billion. As President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said, Iran accounts for 20% of Armenian foreign trade. According to Armenian sources, there are 500 Iranian companies registered there, compared to only 200 in Azerbaijan. Iran is interested in good relations with Armenia for a number of reasons. This includes support for Armenia in accessing the Black Sea coast, as well as a desire to take advantage of the information and networking resources of the Armenian diaspora in France, the United States, and other countries. After all, every time the issue of an attack on Iran comes to the fore, the Armenian diaspora reminds their respective government that Iran is one of the Armenians, two sources of oxygen. In this context, it's quite symbolic that Iranian Foreign Minister Salehi attended the inauguration of President Sarksyan last month. After signing of the so-called contract of the century and the launch of the pipeline infrastructure exporting oil to world markets, some groups in Iran have actively sought to prevent Azerbaijan from strengthening its regional position. The first step of this strategy is increasing pressure on Azerbaijan's domestic policy. Many of you know that as a country with a sheer majority Muslim population, Azerbaijan is of particular interest to Iran. History shows that religious affiliation is a priority for modern Iranian identity. In second place is civic identity, which serves to suppress ethnic identity. The desire of certain circles in Iran to export this form of self-identification to Azerbaijan has failed. The totalitarian nature of Iran's religious and political leadership failed to attract a secular Azerbaijan. Our economic development and the overall crisis in Iran have made Iran's political and economic models an appealing to our citizens. The only channel of influence that can be exploited is religious affiliation. Every sheet, in addition to the Holy Quran, the teaching of Prophet Muhammad, Salah al-Salam, and his successor Ali, should be guided by the instructions of the mushdahid. The problem is that at present there are only 31 of them left and there are persons almost all living in Iran. Informational resources are very huge from Iran to Azerbaijan, for example, Sahar 2, an Iranian television channel that broadcasts in Azerbaijan, along with numerous internet resources, calling on the population of Azerbaijan to abandon the secular lifestyle and to establish a regime similar to Iran's. The pressure on Azerbaijan should be seen in the context of the overall situation unfolding around Iran in the past 20 years. After the occupation of Iraq by the United States, Iran dramatically increased its activity around the borders. In Lebanon, Syria, Pakistan, in Iran, Bahrain, and of course the South Caucasus. The hike of oil prices resolved the question of financing active work in the aforementioned regions and countries. For example, the media outlets affiliated with Iran have actively covered the Armenian Turkish normalization and the U.S. support for this process that did some damage to the public image of the United States in Azerbaijan. As a result, this poorly sought-out normalization of relations between Armenia and Turkey helped Iran by strengthening its position in Armenia and in Azerbaijan. Despite all of these factors, the Republic of Azerbaijan attached special importance to its relations with Iran, because equal and mutually beneficial relations with neighbors are a priority of our foreign policy. Foreign circles in Iran see the secularism, economic and especially cultural development of Azerbaijan as a threat to the current religious and political system of the Islamic Republic. Another group perceived Azerbaijan as a threat following the provocation regarding the use of Azerbaijan territory for launching a strike against Iran. But none of these statements can be substanageable. Our president has repeatedly stated that Azerbaijan territory cannot be used against the neighbors. Azerbaijan upholds this principle for many reasons. But one of the arguments is purely pragmatic. We don't want to see the economic situation deteriorate in a country that is home of millions of our brothers and sisters. Our government has repeatedly stated that it will not interfere in the internal affairs of Iran in the context of infringement of the rights of the local population. We will not tolerate any interference in our own internal affairs either. Having said that, we don't understand Iran's positively and lack of funding for the implementation of non-source transportation projects, on the other hand, and the one side's focus and then financing of energy and transport projects in Armenia on the other. It's quite clear that projects in Armenia are not financially viable and will not bring much benefit. To conclude, I would like to state that Iranian-Azerbaijan relations can be described as relations of neighbors but there is no pragmatism from Iran. A change in the relationship may be anticipated in the short term in context of Iran's democratization when the opinion of Iran's other population will have more impact and will be proportionate in terms of political participation. This component can qualitatively change Iranian policy towards Azerbaijan and the South Caucasus as a whole, making it more stable under the banner of good neighborness, mutual beneficial cooperation and protection of the norms and principles of international law. Thank you for your attention. Thank you very much, Dr. Mehmet, for a very comprehensive keynote address raising virtually the full panorama of issues that we'll be continuing to discuss as the morning goes along. Yes, that's fine. So we're going to turn now to our first panelist and we will go in the order as we were listed in the program and so let me welcome and give the floor to Mr. Asim Malazane from the Parliament of Azerbaijan. Thank you very much. And we appreciate that CSA has organized this event because the situation in a region, the big region of Middle East, Caucasus, Central Asia, dramatically changing up to the events in Syria and right now I would like to start from history because Azerbaijan is a small country in South Caucasus and historically South Caucasus, all this region was a region of great games. Big empires like Russian Empire, Ottoman Empire, Persian Empire, all was fighting and small nations in this region always suffered of this zero sum games of Great Empire, British Empire. If we look to the history in this region we'll find a very interesting thing that Iran and Azerbaijan always was something like starting point of very interesting event. For example, we think that one of the issue why Cold War started so fast was the issue of Azerbaijan. In 1944, there was an Azerbaijani Republic of South Azerbaijan and you know that in 1941 Soviet Union and UK divided Iran because Iran had a floating with fascist Germany and as a result of that northern part of Azerbaijan, third time in the history there were created a Republic of Azerbaijan but an interesting fact that during the meeting in Crimea, Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin agreed to switch Azerbaijan and Poland. It's a dramatic situation on history of Polish people and Azerbaijani people as a result of transferring Poland to Soviet Union, a lot of Polish people were massacred and you know the fate of army Ludova in Poland after the occupation is a dramatic tragedy of Polish people but there is a lack of information what kind of tragedy happened in Tabriz. So far the Azerbaijani people were massacred, they were massacred also it was something like joint operation of Persia and Stalin regime because some of people who escaped to Soviet Union also were killed there and maybe it's interesting point that Poland and Azerbaijan had an historic links, maybe it sounds paradoxical here but in Russian Empire where Poland was a part of that independence movement based in Baku, Azerbaijan when Bolshevik army occupied Azerbaijan Baku, Azerbaijani government moved to Poland and continued struggle for independence in Poland. It's an interesting situation that during the struggle of Azerbaijani people of independence role of solidariness and Polish movement and struggle for against communism was linked to Azerbaijan, very interesting links because Azerbaijan from the beginning of 20th century became world oil center, at the same time Azerbaijan in very turbulent area has been created first secular multi-party parliamentary government in a Muslim Turkish world. It's a very important value for Azerbaijan and when our country again achieved independence in 1991 Azerbaijan restored all the same principle, same flag, same symbolism and same secular state in Muslim world. It became something like a tragic event for Iranian Islamist regime. Independent Azerbaijan was a presence of western companies with open goal because in all documents of Azerbaijan Republic strategy of its development it's a Euro-Atlantic integration and sometimes people asking why Iran, why Islamic Republic of Iran is military ally of Armenia and against Azerbaijan because existence of Azerbaijan country with name of Azerbaijan is a serious threat for them. Iran think that they are even calling us not Azerbaijan but Iran. You are Iran you are not Azerbaijan and it's maybe something which based on ideology because when people from Iran coming to Baku it's something like people from former Soviet Union visiting Paris and it's a serious ideological threat for them and of course during the last year Iran gave a serious support to Armenia in military action against Azerbaijan and we are looking to the situation when there is a triangle Russia with ambition of some forces restored Soviet Union Iran which are afraid of existing pro-western Muslim populated country and Armenia which really is bad for us which lost an independence. Because in South Caucasus we need a serious cooperation of all countries which are there. Right now there is a serious partnership between Azerbaijan and Georgia which choose a way of Euro-Atlantic integration Armenia which became a military base of Russian federation and Russia privatized all industry transport energy of Armenia did not invest anything but there is a huge troop which is a major factor of domestic political life of Armenia and in the same situation after events in Syria Russia and Iran started serious activity. There is one factor there is not a there are bilateral links between the Caspian country like Kazakhstan Azerbaijan Turkmenistan Russia agreed about the division of Caspian sea Iran is opposing and at the same time there is not a multi-party treaty about that. In 1921 between Soviet Union and Iran there were a specific agreement and treaty that Iran has no right for military navy on Caspian sea. After independence of Azerbaijan Kazakhstan other countries collapse of Soviet Union Russia unilaterally allowed them to have a navy on Caspian. It's an interesting situation that for example ships from Kazakhstan Turkmenistan has no access to Russian port Turk in Azerbaijan also we have no access to Volga river Iran has. It means that Caspian sea also became area of cooperation between Russia and Iran and in this situation new countries new independent countries of like Georgia and Azerbaijan seriously suffering of this gate what Iran is doing trying to export Islamic revolution they spend a lot of money according some Iranian sources a period from 92 to 2000 Iran allocated in their budget about 48 million for Islamic groups in Georgia and Azerbaijan because also in Georgia it's about a half a million of population Muslim population and Iran also trying to use this factor against Georgia as well not only Azerbaijan they failed to do that because strong secular traditions in Azerbaijan not allow them to use this Islamic factor but they change track and trying to use the conflict which is existing between Azerbaijan and Armenia with the goal of create a pressure. Two years ago I was in Yerevan and I was in Karabakh and it was strange for me to listen in Yerevan Azerbaijani language a lot of people spoke Azerbaijani and they were Iranians even a mask in Yerevan under control of Iran and a lot of support coming to Armenia military support its economic support came from Iran there is a other factor which recently changing the situation it's a relationship between Azerbaijan United States and NATO country Azerbaijan provides a great logistic to NATO operation in Afghanistan and at the same time relationship between Azerbaijan and Israel from the first day of our independence we have a big Jewish community in Azerbaijan and it's a very important part of our culture and history and there is a Azerbaijani diaspora in Israel relationship between Israel and Azerbaijan became a serious factor just economic figures trade between Azerbaijan and Iran is about something like 300 million but trade between Azerbaijan and Israel more than four and a half billion it's a two-time bigger than trade between Azerbaijan and Russia of course this situation created a new factors and after events in Syria Iran provides very bold and aggressive politics in our region why are we speaking and trying to pick attention on American public attention to this issue because Azerbaijan and Georgia are strategic partners of United States right now there are events in the region very terrible events and it's a damaging national security interests of our people and national security interests of United States Iran is the country which supporting a totalitarian country which supporting international terror in our region for example member of Azerbaijan a parliament was killed by Hezbollah mid of 90s now Azerbaijan playing together with its partners Georgia very important role for European energy security we're breaking a monopoly of Russia for gas to Europe and of course it's creating a new factors situation now in our region as it was on the middle of 90s when Azerbaijan signed a huge oil gas contract with international consortium with the support of United States now Azerbaijan together with Turkey building new pipeline system which giving a new hope for energy security of Europe and situation became very difficult situation became difficult because of danger of Iran danger of Iran for all interests of Western country and its partners that way thank you for your attention and I think that we need a serious effort of all our partners to the security situation in our region thank you very much thank you very much mr. Malazade just a one note since we started a little bit late we're going to continue this first panel until 1030 and other housekeeping note unfortunately dr. Lu Zhang our visiting fellow from China here at CSS right now is unable to attend this morning because he has fallen ill over the weekend so we'll have a a shorter panel in the the second panel looking at regional international implications of this relationship okay let me turn now to dr. and guide Mirza a leading research fellow at this at the Sam Center in Azerbaijan thank you very much I'd like to thank also mr. my mother because coincidentally he mentioned the issue of much that hits that I gonna touch a bit detailed way and mr. Malazade for the mentioning of the Polish factor in the story in the 40s probably that's where the Polish sympathies to Azerbaijan come from because we always feel that support from the Polish people nowadays and there are different things in the relations of Azerbaijan with Iran which basically when analysts comment them they they talk about the current geopolitical context but I think that in Azerbaijan many analysts write about the historic historic prerequisites and the importance of reasons which stem from the history of the nation building process of Azerbaijan is whoever in the west not too many people know about that and not too many people write about that that's what I what I want to talk about today mr. my mother has touched a bit about the history I want to go in a little bit more detail but the middle of the 18th century when the Safavid rule in Iran entered and the country entered period of the long turmoil more than 20 candidates as semi-independent states existed in the territory of modern Azerbaijan and they were in the both sides of the arrex river predominantly they were Shiite and their leaders the cons they were also Shiites and they almost all of them had roots from the gizlbash tribes the Turkic Shiite gizlbash tribes which were in future the core of the Azerbaijani nation building these candidates were vessels of the Persian throne whoever they didn't recognize that versality and they they they the thing was that they always had to maneuver among Russia Iran and the Ottomans and although that was the period when Azerbaijan language has distinguished from other Turkic languages of the region that that was the very important moment in the national building process the subdivision brought to national tragedy because in 1828 Russian Iran signed the Turkmenchi peace under which the territories went to the Russian crown and the territories south from the arrex river are still under Iran and since that moment the roadmaps of the two parts of the Azeri nation they're developing in different ways in the early 90th century Azerbaijani Turks demonstrated low level of ethnic ethnic consciousness that was period when it was very specific for the unprecedented rights unprecedented rise of national thought in literature at the same time religious and religious identity took primary place in the minds of people religion here was the fundament of identity it was blocking other forms of self-identification first of all the ethnic cell of self-identification before going on I would like to say that I'm a Muslim I'm a practicing Muslim I'm proud of it but I'm also an analyst and scholar and what we're talking about is the about the importance of the religious the religious thinking and secularity in in the context of relations with Islam the problem was that only in religion one could find support for his identity and uniqueness and if in european renaissance they were brought they brought to victory of secularism over clergy and gave huge impetus to the evolution of various forms of self-identification like for example ethnic self-identification or civil self-identification when in the Muslim world islamic dogmatism and religious obscurantism dominated for much longer clergy was the major obstacle in Azerbaijan for evolution of ethnic self-identification however Russian colonization brought to Azerbaijan european science and education culture and values ideas of enlightenment in the times when islamic dogmatism was literally running through all the spheres of life and under this influence first as a bajani modernizers nowadays known as the classicists of national literature they fully understood that first the cultural and social stagnation is conditioned primarily by religious self-identification and the birth of Azerbaijan national thought and literature carried obvious anti-clerical character that's a very important point and it was built on harsh criticism of religious obscurant clergy in other words to become Azerbaijanis people had to grow over Islam and to realize that there was something more than just Muslims of the Caucasus or Muslim Turks of the Caucasus that's I mean at the national building process for Azerbaijanis it carried a very specific and very obvious secular character it's not surprising then when Russian empire collapsed in 1917 in 1918 the first secular republic democratic parliamentary republic in the Turkic world and the muslim world was established in Azerbaijan it was a secular parliamentary republic and it has a three dogmas on which it was built and it was the Turkic freedom islamic culture and modernity and the three things are described are they are symbolized in Azerbaijan a trickle or even nowadays in soviet Azerbaijan secular values were even strengthened due to obvious dogmatism of the moxist ideology and its atheistic nature so when in 1991 Azerbaijanis again choose secular option for its modal of state despite secular way of thinking speaking and doing business of politics they anyway stayed muslims and recent limited access research conducted by the center for strategic studies under the presence of Azerbaijan shows considerable changes which took place in the society Islam has become a considerable factor in the Azerbaijani society nevertheless Islam in Azerbaijan is still more a way of a cultural identification rather than political philosophy and the nation is still very much aware unaware of Islam's place and role in modern politics by the way this is not a problem of Azerbaijan absence of awareness of Islam's role in place in politics is intrinsic to many muslim states and even if you take Turkey to tens of years to find that appropriate modal for that so due to complexity of historic factors described above at the moment the features which would be very positive for the Azerbaijani national building in the 19th century there are the weaknesses for Azerbaijan now and the result is that the major problems are the low level of religious awareness among the wide variety of people and the absence of local theology school that's the major problem Azerbaijan is not able to produce their own much tachets like there's other people that Mr Mamadoff mentioned in his speech and I want to go a bit more in that detail later as we're coming to the core point of my speech I would like to stress that these two weaknesses exist in Azerbaijan neighboring to Iran Iran which is demographically economically and militarily much stronger than Azerbaijan Iran which is a 4 000 year old culture with strong structured popular and tested ideology attractive to many people from Beirut to Kabul and with numerous tools to propagate that ideology outside including software not quite soft power Iran which considers territories between the Eric's River and the North Caucasus as a part of its historic territory and as it has already been mentioned not some people in Tehran usually the most aggressive ones they don't even call Azerbaijan as a bhajan republic they prefer to say Baku Republic or a part of Iran as Mr. Malazada said yeah Iran their supreme leader calls himself Amiral Moominin it means the leader of all Muslims of the world this is a important positioning and the foreign policy concept of Iran says that no problem from Lebanon to Kabul from Derwent to the Gulf can be solved without Iranian participation and of course this concept includes also the Karabakh problem they think that the Karabakh problem cannot be solved without Iranian participation Iran has been continuously supporting Armenian aggressors at least in economic and infrastructural terms since 95 Iran has built three electricity lines connecting the two countries a 1.2 billion cubic meters gas pipeline exist and the gas electricity exchange plays important role in cooperation of the two countries since 2007 Armenian cargo companies have border control preferences and easy procedure access to Iranian ports in the Gulf in November 2012 322 million u.s. dollar Mehry Garacilar hydroelectric station project was initiated and that both presidents Ahmadinejad and Sakya Sian participated in the ceremony they're also discussing about the possibility to open the free economic zones and other forms of cooperation I'd also like to remind as far we're in the United States I'd like to remind a case about the later letter from the former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Mr. John Negroponte to the President Sakya Sian in 2008 regarding Armenian strength for machine guns and rockets to Iran in 2003 those weapons were later found to have been used at least in one instance in attack in Iraq by the Shia militants that killed one U.S. soldier and one of six others so the this is this is the weapons that killed citizens of the United States at the same time Sakya Sian was not present he was the defense ministry I would also want to like to mention before we get one with the Azerbaijan Iran issue I'd like to mention that if you analyze Armenian media in English or Armenian sources in English you cannot find too many things about Armenian Iran corporation because this is a this is a thought over thing they tend not to speak about their cooperation with Iran in English you have to analyze the Armenian sources in Russian where they call themselves almost brothers in arms with Iran because that's why if Armenian analysts English speaking analysts will talk negatively about Iran you should open out and show them the things that are written in Russian and state information agencies of Armenia in Russian so see what the answer if they can so we'll go back to the issue it's obvious that the level of religious awareness and absence of national theology school as I mentioned were the problems and these problems demonstrate at the moment considerable dangerous negative synergies with Iran's strengths let's bring a small example to describe just one tool that Tehran is using again as Azerbaijan and that's the thing that Mr. Mamanov mentioned the power of Mujtahidz we currently observe that Tehran it's the conservative part of its clergy they are trying to politicize Islam in Azerbaijan an Islamized political agenda so it means that there is such a mechanism as Shai Taglit it has been used in Iran since 1979 to project its soft not always soft power not only in Azerbaijan in Iraq in the Gulf in Lebanon for example according to what so what is Taglit according to the rules of Shai Islam each Muslim individual Muslim or Mughalit has to follow a scholar or Mujtahid and that scholar must be alive one cannot follow with dead Mujtahid and that scholar must possess a right to issue fatwas religious orders prescriptions for Muslims majority of Mujtahidz are from GUM this is the center of Shia its thought and the power of Taglit it doesn't recognize borders state borders it means that if a if a Mujtahid in Iran issues a fatwa that you have to go and overthrow your government you have to go and bless the parliament you have to go and keep people in the underground station so literally the man has to do it is if he's a true Shia Muslim and I want to mention also that this also reminds me as far as I'm a specialist on Russia and I think that this is this reminds much the policy of commentary in 90s 20s 40s when the communist movements were the sort of a fifth column of various european states used by Stalin's intelligence isn't it like that three three Ayatollahs are particularly active in this in this field thank you I'm finishing it's Ayatollah Makarim Shirazi Ayatollah Nuri Hamadani and Ayatollah Jafar Supani who from time to time issued fatwas of I get an aggressive character and the last one worries me much because Ayatollah Jafar Supani has some followers in Azerbaijan and a number of his books are sold in the religious bookstores so you should add up to this a number of NGOs websites and mosque jamad so these are the semi-proxies of Iran among Azerbaijani community and of course they benefit from the situation that there are some democratic values in our country and it's not that easy to go and close an NGO or just destroy this or another jamad in the mosque because it's not like that so as I said these dangerous synergies they create advantage for the conservative part of the Iranian clergy which considers Azerbaijan as a subject not object of its interest and it's very difficult to predict the exact development of relations because Baku has showed considerable ability to to be to be neutral against any provocations from Tehran but at the same time we have showed considerable ability to counter pressure when necessary as for Iran I think that it's not bad because it's a big country and we cannot say that Iranian government is like this there are different camps in that government and there are people that have more moderate views towards Azerbaijan and its policies and we also understand that the elections are upcoming so we hope that's taken into account the the balanced policy of Azerbaijan towards Iran and understanding of the importance of regional global factors we will not see any harsh and unpredictable developments in the bilateral relations. Thank you very much. Thank you very much Dr. Mirza for I'm not a doctor so far but I hope I will be soon. Okay well I don't have the power to confirm you with with that so let me correct myself Mr. Mirza but it was a very interesting more historical exploration of the the challenges of nation building in Azerbaijan and particularly the the religious relationship aspects aspects of the religious relationship between Azerbaijan and Iran today. Last on our panel and very much not not least let me turn to Alex Vatanka who is here in town in Washington at the the Middle East Institute and a renowned scholar and analyst of caucuses in Transcaspian Islamic and security affairs. Thanks for joining us today Alex. Thank you very much Andrew. Good morning everyone let me start off by apologizing I hope my voice will stay with me for the next five ten minutes but I picked up something on a flight coming in last week so bear with me. I really have two points that I want to go through this morning. Point number one is if you look at the last few months of developments in Iran-Azerbaijan relations you've seen ups and downs. If you take the last week you see lots of new Iranian promises about security cooperation with Baku, why it's important and so forth. If you look at the week prior to that then it was about Iran taking Azerbaijan to the international court picking up a fuss over the division of the Caspian threatening Baku with legal action for allegedly polluting the Caspian Sea and so forth. So you see this pattern back and forth continuously going back I would say the last two years and I suspect this will continue and I suspect the crisis is something certainly and I'm going to focus on the Iranian perspective something that the Iran does not does not want to see get out of control. Iran right now simply cannot afford another major foreign policy hot potato on its lap and Azerbaijan is not an issue that it's insignificant because it's not as very significant but in terms of timing it's happening at a time when Iran really does have a full plate and wants to put this on the back burner. Now I can come back to you hopefully in the Q&A later on about what the ultimate Iranian objectives are and I share some of the views expressed already. The Iranians do have some at least certain circles in Tehran do have interest in terms of making inroads into this country because remember from an Iranian point of view this is probably one of the most natural countries for the for the export of the Iranian revolution Shia country of Azerbaijan but that's not something that's at the forefront right now that's my reading of the situation and I will very briefly at the end talk about why Azerbaijan isn't just another foreign policy issue from Tehran's perspective look this is a regime that's been in place for 34 years for 34 years the regime in Tehran has had the issue of are we the legitimate rulers of this country I mean that is in many ways if you look at the Iran US stalemate that is what is at the center of the debate they want a recognition from Washington it's not just about the nuclear issue recognize us as the legitimate rulers so that's something that the regime as a whole has you know had to wrestle with for all this time and then you introduce something like the issue of Azerbaijan into the picture why is Azerbaijan sensitive but look we've heard already look at the cultural religious historic linguistic all sorts of proximities that exist the idea of Azerbaijan becoming a foreign policy headache for a much bigger than it is already isn't just another foreign policy issue it could have ramifications in Iran I mean at a worse case scenario the strategies in Tehran fear the dismantlement of Iran they don't look at it just in case of Azerbaijan they look at Balochistan Khuzestan Kurdistan they look at the sectarian tensions that are happening across the the Middle East the Shia Sunni divide and so forth so there are a whole host of issues that play into it and I think the interesting part about that is if you look at the debate in Tehran I would argue while the hardliners the ones who want to be supporting Islamist entities in in Azerbaijan and elsewhere are in the driving seat right now they have the control because they have the ear of the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khomeini but in reality in terms of numbers there are a minority and you know right now they're playing this high state game particularly vis-à-vis the United States on the nuclear issue but if they fail if there is a big failure happening on their watch the question is can the pragmatic forces come to fore now we heard the presidential elections are coming up look at the debate right now in terms of the the elections you got really three schools of thought in Tehran you got the people around Khomeini particularly the top tiers around in the IRGC the Islamic Revolution guard score then you got the pragmatic forces that are around people like Ayatollah Rafsanjani and the so-called green reformist movement that is a bit of a mishmash but it's there and then you got people around Ahmadinejad they're all over the place they're populist in terms of their foreign policy but my point is you got different schools of thought when it comes to the pursuit of foreign policy and you cannot discount the fact that sometime in the future maybe after these elections you can see a change away from this idea of exporting the revolution to the region the idea that this region as a whole is not ready to accept our revolution is not prepared for it for whatever reason doesn't want it and you can look at what's happening in the Arab world and say there that's where the Iranians are getting their lessons from look how quickly Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood has been able to turn its back on Iran the fact that Khaled Mishal packed up and left Syria as quickly as he did after 11 years of being there at the you know having the Iranians foot the bill the fact that Muhammad Morsi in Egypt has been very cold towards the Iranians these things put together could create a whole new strategic shift in Tehran that says exporting of the revolution is not going to happen right now why don't we put our national interests first and I think there are many people again if you look at and listen to the debate in Tehran who are saying that who are openly saying we will do much better in a country like Azerbaijan if we don't go in with the idea of the Villa Yatafari and Shia Islam but go in with the idea Persian poetry food and things that we can actually sell to these people not just in Azerbaijan across the former Soviet south these people exist and they're actually the majority but because of the system in Iran they don't have their voices heard but again you don't have to go back that far go back to 97 to 2005 when somebody within this Iranian regime president Muhammad Khatami did implement moderate policies so I think that's the kind of you know in the absence of regime change in Tehran that's the kind of hope one could have and say well you know maybe the Iranian supreme leader who right now is the ultimate power might look around in the region and realize that the old idea of exporting the revolution is not going to happen and I think you know we might be moving in that in that direction um let me stop there and then I look forward to the Q and A okay thank you we have about almost 20 minutes left for for for Q and A so please when I call upon you please provide your name and affiliation and I will turn to you later I promise you you will have you will have your have have your time um yes you're in the front row it's one of the countries Iran is one of the countries that could conceivably fracture after major change in administration and in that scenario um south Azeris might look very fondly upon their brethren to the north with the Azeri people welcome anosis with south Azerbaijan if Iran were to just dissolve in some way I will answer the question well this is uh this is not a rare question the accounts are different something that 30 million Azeris live there something that 15 something at 40 you can imagine that they may be very different people among them and 9 million people living Azerbaijan in the north itself and since uh as I said since the Turkmen Chaypeas the road maps were different of course there are people who would welcome that and there are people also who think that these more than 200 years changed the two parts so much that this is just uh two parts of the same nation with the very different psychologies and mentalities when I meet people from the south Azerbaijan I see that well they're more or less similar I can eat I can drink I can go to a party I can discuss something but it's a big question if it's a possible to build at the same state with those people we're not talking about just living for a week together this is a political issue and the number of people there and in modern Azerbaijan is very different so there are even people who think that it's not so south Azerbaijan would join north but vice versa so this this is very different opinion exists on that thank you but also I would like to add to some issue that Azerbaijan is in Iran probably in a very difficult situation no any simple ethnic rights Azerbaijani communities they have no schools they have no universities they have not any potential opportunity to grow their culture and language and I think this is the worst situation and also culture common culture music versus also becoming a serious factor for example there were negative reaction of Iranian government to new satellites of Azerbaijan because Azerbaijani TV Azerbaijani music as you know rock play a very important role for collapse of Soviet Union culture play a very important role culture of northern Azerbaijan created a serious influence to Iran and also sport there are some factors that tractor club of Tabriz during the matches of this football club thousands of people shouting that Azerbaijan is not Iran and with this type of efforts sport and culture play a very important role to pick ethnic identity of Azerbaijan is in Iran and also new technologies internet TV spade broadcasting of Azerbaijan and culture a cultural program from Turkish channels play a very important role for millions of Azerbaijani which has not a any simple ethnic right we can compare Armenian community very small Armenian community of their own school they have the all the rights protection of rights in Iran but no such a chances for juice and Azerbaijan is interesting thank you my name is Nikolas Ansinger I work for the American Enterprise Institute I have a question for Mr. Vatanka you briefly mentioned that Iran might adjust its policies vis-à-vis Azerbaijan in pragmatic ways you know with the upcoming elections in Iran in mind which are taking place in June you know there are a lot of different factions and camps which compete for power in Iran do you see any tendency for the upcoming elections in the Iranian power structure any tendencies where it might go you know I wish I could say I do but I I can tell you foreign policy in the overall scheme of things in the in the election cycle so far has not been at the top of the list I mean right now we're still trying to figure out who's going to put their names forward we've got another two weeks left before the final candidate list will be there but the key foreign policy issues relate to the United States obviously the nuclear program and these are the so-called red strategic issues that only one person I told the Khomeini controls and he's not up for election so it doesn't really matter nobody's going to dare question the fundamentals arguably you will say foreign policy in Iran is about those issues that's exactly what we should have the debate about but because of the the system the fact that Khomeini has very publicly and basically word by word has said only I will decide the course of relations United States and you know Mahmoud Ahmadinejad tried but he was slapped down but I really think Khomeini is also sufficiently pragmatic to be able to listen to advice that comes to him from beyond the circles right immediately surrounding them who are our hardliners so even if you look at his own family household there are people who are married into the Khomeini household who have people like Kamal Kharazi's family the guy saw the Kharazi who was a former ambassador to France who runs a very very decent website called Iranian diplomacy which happens to publish in Farsi and English look it up you see these moderate views now again there's a lot of self-censorship going on people have to be careful what they say they cannot come in and say you know what we're totally wrong in terms of this hostility against country A, B and C but they are saying we need to change but foreign policy right right now the big issue in Iran is who will be approved by the Guardian Council to run for their elections and people are playing it very safe nobody wants to dare say a word that will get them disqualified oh hello thank you for this very interesting panel and the discussion recently oh sorry I'm Hovanes Nikol Gosien a visiting scholar from Duke University I have a question to Alex Votankan sorry to abuse your voice with a question but whenever I'm hearing with this ethnic kinship issue between Zaris living in Azerbaijan and the people living in the north of Iran I'm reminded of the difference between the epic tales that these two people consider their their his where they dispatched their history namely in Azerbaijan they consider the book of the Dede Korkut I guess as the pan-Turkic tale as their epic story whereas the people in north of Iran consider the Shahnameh as their epic tale which is all Iranian or shall I say all Persian can you comment on this because I'm whenever I'm hearing with this with this with these discussions I'm reminded of this difference which maybe we can draw parallels between Austrians and Germans who speak the same language but nevertheless they are very different nations you know thank you for that question I can't really tell you much about the specifics of that question because you simply don't know enough about it so I'll sort of I guess stop there but in terms of the bigger question about you know what's the nature of relations between the two people what nation divided it's about 200 years ago actually I think exactly 200 years ago that you know that the Russians captured what is today Azerbaijan Armenia so forth from the Persian empire so a lot of a lot of water under the bridge already you know you listen to Azeri in Baku versus Tabriz you ID here Russian you're Farsi depending where you are you hear that you know obviously it's had an impact but I think the peoples are much closer than one perhaps thinks as well that's my reading I can tell you the last couple of years to my surprise because I've always been one who's argued that the notion of greater Azerbaijan really doesn't have much traction among the elite in Baku they look at the south and they they see a project that they cannot manage I mean look at the sizes country of 8 million taking a country Azeris population of 25 perhaps to 30 million how can you manage that but on the on the Iranian side also the idea of greater Azerbaijan has increasingly though in recent years started to to take off I see the youth I mean I compare the older generation with the youth and I see the youth are taking a different turn now this is the question that deserves to be studied is it because of the Azeri kinship that is making them become more assertive in terms of their ethnic identity or is it a fundamental problem with the lack of legitimacy on the part of the regime in Tehran so it's a governance issue and I suspect it's got a lot to do with governance because if you look at the Azeri grievances in Iran they are pretty much identical to Kurdish or Baluch grievances in that country actually they've come together in a sort of ethnic minority political parties have to come together as one entity united front asking for better rights and representations so I think we shouldn't take our eyes away from the question of governance and legitimacy because I think we find a lot of the answer there in terms of what drives people in places like Urumia, Tabriz and also there is another factor because Dada Gorgut is the Turkish language and Shakhna meh's Persian Turkish identity is forbidden in Iran and that's why they even in school they study Shakhna meh on Persian and there is no any information about Dada Gorgut and it's forbidden even touch issue of Turkish identity of Azerbaijan is in Iran that's why there is such a difference but independent Azerbaijan has more chances to learn their own history their own literature thank you very much my name is Frakred Nismailov I'm from the embassy of Azerbaijan I have a small question for Mr. Isim Mola Zayda he mentioned the Armenian community living in Iran fortunately it's become a major objective for Armenian community and diaspora organization to try to impeach the relation between their host countries and Azerbaijan could you please elaborate your views on the impact or influence if there's any of Armenian community on bilateral relations between Iran and Azerbaijan thank you very much very small Armenian community in Iran but it's a unique community which has more rights than any other ethnic groups in Iran it's an interesting situation that even Armenian community has a right producing alcohol but there is no any other rights for Christian or Jewish communities in Iran and of course very strong and also the business active Armenian community playing a role in a factor for example breaking isolation of Iran after the sanction on financial terms using their links with Armenian banks Armenian community in Iran working very actively and of course Armenian community in Iran creating problems on relationship between Iran and Azerbaijan because it's obvious for us that Iran using the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia for keeping their influence in the region and right now Iran is a major factor who helped with energy fuel to regime in Karabakh I was a witness is that in all Karabakh petrification there's Iranian tanks and it's maybe Armenian community Iran play a role for that again we need a serious support international community to help to Azerbaijan and Armenia solve this conflict and maybe in this situation we will break Iranian influence to the region of South Caucasus thank you very much I'm Andranikovanistan embassy of Armenia it has not become a surprise for the Armenian diplomats to hear from Azerbaijan speakers all kind of propaganda pieces whenever Azerbaijanis have an access to a microphone we are ready to listen anti-Armenian propaganda and this was the case today as well but today our Azerbaijani friends went as far as to question Armenia's independence on territorial integrity mr. Mohammed specifically referred to Armenia geographically Azerbaijan territory so I think it's obvious but anything said about the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict any terms used are also an Azerbaijani propaganda including the allegations of so-called occupation just I would not enter into the Nagorno-Karabakh issue it's not the theme of the day just to mention that the international mediation format which is a means group has never never referred to Nagorno Karabakh as an occupied territory and I will pass to comment the speakers of the day Mr. Mola Zade claimed that Iran supported Armenia during the Armenian side during the war in Nagorno Karabakh which is another blatant misrepresentation it's not true on the contrary there were some reports saying that Iran militarily supported Azerbaijan I don't know whether these comments are or claims are true or not but they are coming as high as from the Imam of Ardabil as high as from the former commander of Iranian National Revolutionary Guard and from the contemporary media if one opens the media of 1990s of Washington Post New York Times there are a lot of such allegations again I don't know they are true or not but there have been reports that Iran supported Azerbaijan during the war in Nagorno Karabakh and there have never been any reports of Iran supporting Armenian side this is blatant misrepresentation now let me pass to the issue of Iran-Armenian relations yeah today we have heard a lot from our Azerbaijani friends about Iran relations with Armenia however I came here today to heard about the relations between Iran and Azerbaijan as the title of conference itself says but I wonder why Azerbaijani friends are so shy to speak about the relations with between Iran and Azerbaijan you are sharing the cultural religious ethnic strong kinship with Iran and it's natural that Iran is cooperating on all those issues with Azerbaijan and vice versa but you have not touched those issues I don't know was for reason you can mention that Iranian students for example excuse me Azerbaijan students for example get their education in Iranian religious seminaries like in kum annually about 250 to 300 persons from Azerbaijan get their education there you can also develop on the economic relations you haven't mentioned any project between Iran and Azerbaijan but guess what Iran has huge investments in Azerbaijan 10 percent of Shah Deniz is Iranian 10 percent of South Caucasus pipeline is Iranian it's okay if it is within the international sections regime I don't see anything bad in that when countries neighboring countries cooperate and Armenia doesn't make any secret about this cooperation with Iran it's transparent it's free because simple reason that countries in 20th century especially neighboring countries cooperate with each other there is no secret about that and Armenia does everything again in the framework of international obligations and we are not making secret about that but I'm surprised to hear the criticism of Armenian media freedom coming from a country which is ranked in the 15 most censors countries in the world according to the committee for anybody tells here about the critics of Armenian media who told here that there is no media freedom in Armenia thank you let me finish the current coming from the country which is ranked 15th in according to the committee for protection of journalists 15th most censored countries in the world now you mentioned about sorry I mentioned not critics I mentioned that you should distinguish the Russian sources in Armenia and Armenian sources or English sources because in English Armenian media never writes about the brother relations but you think we don't read that websites so or we don't go to open Armenia dot am or something we don't read what's gonna pot we don't read those crazy analysts that you have these people don't know Russian that not not don't know that but we do time I could question do you have a question no okay we then please sorry on the knee this is a you know we don't need to hear the again the official position countered if you have a question please mr. Kachin there are a number of questions the I'd like to hear one we're literally out of time on this panel okay let me let me pass to my question thank you for your patience I would like to ask mr. Mirza if he reads all the WikiLeaks cables and not only those coming from Armenia but also coming from Azerbaijan in particular Hathi read the cable from coming from Azerbaijan the embassy of the United States in Azerbaijan in March 2009 which specifically uses the words sanction best thing and this is the language used by the cable note by myself describing relations between Azerbaijan and Iran thank you I don't comment issues on WikiLeaks just I would like to remind our colleagues from Armenia about the resolution of security council of united nation about the occupied Azerbaijan territory also resolution of european parliament parliamentary assembly of council of Europe about the occupied territory ethnic cleansing of Azerbaijanis in occupied territory because under the occupation is not only a mountain part of Karabakh seven regions of Azerbaijan occupied by Armenian forces and all Azerbaijanis ethnically cleansed from this area that way I would like to remind you about that and about economic relations between Azerbaijan and Iran I just gave an information a trade between Azerbaijan and Iran transparent stop on information is about 300 million but the trade between Azerbaijan and Israel 4 billion but it's okay Azerbaijan would like to continue to have a neighborhood normal neighborhood policy with Iran but we have other fact in center of Baku after Petva of Ayatollah and Karani was killed a Rafiq Tari radical secular writer Iran tried to organize terror acts in Baku on eve of Europe being a song content because this european popular music event is was a serious threat against the totalitarian islamic regime and we mentioning that Azerbaijan needs a normal relationship with all neighbors and Azerbaijan now urgently needs a peace with Armenia we're calling Armenia to peace we need Armenia as a partner of Azerbaijan and Georgia we need Armenia as a partner of your Atlantic community not a partner of Iran or tool in the hands of Russia for the idea of restoration of Soviet Union in you for all the Armenia has a Russian troops in our region and all troops from Georgia and Azerbaijan were moved to Armenia it's a huge Russian military base and as a speaker of Russian parliament says that Armenia is our outpost military outpost come on we need Armenia as an independent state we need Armenia as a partner of NATO country partner you have united states and also we need that Armenian community in united states will help us to make Armenia as a friend of united states not Iran or Russia that's all okay we're gonna have to just bring this panel to an end let me extend my thanks to mr. Malazada mr. Mirza and mr. Pataka for their excellent contributions and for your contributions as well we will take a we will continue with the second panel starting sharply at 10 45 which is in about seven minutes okay thank you