Azerbaijan: US-Iran Tensions Cause for Minority Arrests?

Some Azerbaijani analysts question whether growing tensions between the United States and Iran have prompted a recent charge of treason brought against a prominent member of an ethnic minority group with strong cultural links to Iran, and the arrest of his associate. The government has so far declined to comment on the case.

On February 2, Novruzali Mammadov, an ethnic Talysh and head of the Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan's Institute of Philology, editor-in-chief of the Talysh-language newspaper Tolyshi Sado (Voice of the Talysh) and head of the Talysh Cultural Center, was arrested in Baku and charged with high treason. He was sentenced to 15 days' detention for resisting arrest. Mammadov still remains in prison, while the investigation into his case continues.

The predominantly-Shia Talysh speak an Iranian dialect and have a sizeable presence within northern Iran, as well as within the southern Azerbaijani regions of Lenkoran and Massaly. Within Azerbaijan, the group is estimated to number anywhere from 80,000, according to official statiistics, to 2 million, according to the Talysh National Movement.

Khilal Mammadov, head of the Committee to Protect the Rights of the Talysh Cultural Center's Chairman, told the Turan news agency on February 27 that Novruzali Mammadov is accused of taking money from Iran to publish Tolyshi Sado, a monthly which covers news from southern Azerbaijan, home to most of Azerbaijan's Talysh population along the border with Iran.

The state prosecutor's office has declined all comment on the case.

Meanwhile, the detentions have continued. On February 16, two weeks after Novruzali Mammadov's arrest, Elman Quliyev, an employee of the Institute of Philology and a senior assistant at Tolyshi Sado, was also arrested, according to Ramiz Mammadov, the attorney for Novruzali Mammadov. The attorney states that police searched Quliyev's house and removed a computer from the premises. Quliyev remains in prison.

Eleven days later, plainclothes police detained Ali Nasirov, deputy chairman of the Talysh Cultural Center and executive editor of Talyshi Sado. Nasirov has since stated that he was taken to the Ministry of National Security to answer questions related to the Novruzali Mammadov investigation, and stressed that he has no complaints about his treatment there, the APA news agency reported.

In an interview with EurasiaNet, Mammadov's lawyer declined to discuss the charges against his client, but affirmed that the linguist is in "no way" connected with espionage for Iran. "[T]hese accusations are not related to reality," said Ramiz Mammadov.

Some analysts in Baku, however, contend that the arrests are part of government efforts to show the international community that it is standing strong against Iran, Azerbaijan's southern neighbor.

"Azerbaijan will feel the consequences of tension between the USA and Iran," independent political analyst Leyla Aliyeva commented. "Therefore, on the one hand, Azerbaijan states that the country has signed a non-aggression treaty with Iran, and on the other hand, the authorities show [their] cooperation with the US in the military sphere."

Arif Yunus, a minorities researcher at the Baku-based Institute of Peace and Democracy, agreed, characterizing the arrests as part of a campaign to give the "appearance of fighting against terrorism, [a demonstration] which the Azerbaijani authorities, from time to time, make to the United States and the West."

As military ties between Azerbaijan and the West strengthen, concerns among ordinary Azerbaijanis have begun to run strong about what role, if any, the Caspian Sea state could play in a potential military conflict between the US and Iran over the Persian Gulf state's nuclear research activities. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Both Azerbaijani and US officials, however, have repeatedly stressed that Azerbaijan is not under consideration for use in any military response to Iran's nuclear program.

Tensions between Azerbaijan and Iran themselves, however, also recently spiked. Officials have reported that Iranian helicopters repeatedly violated Azerbaijani air space on February 22. The Iranian embassy in Baku has stated that the helicopters were traveling with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on a trip to northern Iran, near the Azerbaijan border, and has asserted that Azerbaijani officials received prior warning of the helicopters' flight path. The Azerbaijani State Border Service has denied the claim.

While asserting that the arrests of Mammadov and Quliyev could not be linked with Iranian espionage activities, Aliyeva and Yunus caution that their detention could, however, spark strong resentment against the Azerbaijani government within the Talysh community. "I am not sure that, if the situation around Iran becomes aggravated, people there [ in southern Azerbaijan] will calmly watch," Yunus stated.

Iranian influence over the Talysh is widely portrayed as running strong. Turan distributed a report claiming that the Iranian special services usually look among the Talysh minority for Azerbaijan-based agents. The agency also reported that the Iranian Sahar TV channel, which broadcasts to southern Azerbaijan, has called on the Talysh to take steps against the government of President Ilham Aliyev.

Some of these sensitivities can be traced to the 1993 revolt of Alikram Humbatov, a former commander of a military unit in southern Azerbaijan, who proclaimed himself leader of the "Talysh-Mugan Republic." The local population, however, did not support him. Humbatov now lives in the Netherlands, after being pardoned in 2004 from a life prison sentence.

Azerbaijan's Talysh community, however, cannot be easily characterized, pointed out minorities researcher Yunus. The group, he said, is roughly divided between those who seek to obtain independence from Azerbaijan, those who want cultural autonomy within Azerbaijan, and those who want to promote Talysh language and culture, but also to establish warmer ties with ethnic Azeris.

Among these divisions, Novruzali Mammadov could not be called a person with separatist sympathies or one likely to work in league with Iran, Yunus argued. The "only hook," or fact, that links Mammadov to Iran, he added, is a 2004 trip the linguist took to the country to take part in a scientific conference on Persian language, history and culture.

"I know Mammadov," Yunus commented to EurasiaNet. "He is a scientist who is working in linguistics. He is a harmless person."

In a statement to Turan, former Talysh separatist leader Humbatov seconded that view: "The authorities could have caught more radical Talysh people," he said.