An international peacekeeping force in Nagorno Karabakh seems like it would be a long way away, but Iran has already weighed in on who they don't want participating: the U.S. Reports RFE/RL:
An Iranian diplomat says Tehran is strongly opposed to U.S. involvement in a multinational peacekeeping force that would be deployed around the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh in the event of an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace accord, RFE/RL's Armenian Service reports.
Iranian Ambassador to Armenia Seyed Ali Saghaeyan issued the warning at a news conference in Yerevan on June 23....
According to Saghaeyan, the United States is keen to have troops in Azerbaijan's Fizuli district, which borders Iran and was mostly occupied by Karabakh Armenian forces in 1993. He claimed such a move would pose a serious threat to Iran given its tense relations with Washington.
"Iran is the only country adjacent to the conflicting parties, and in terms if ensuring its own security, it will not allow the deployment of American forces," Saghayean said.
This opposition seems a little premature. It's not clear what organization would oversee this potential peacekeeping force -- the UN? OSCE? -- but the U.S. participation in non-NATO peacekeeping forces is pretty minimal, and it's hard to imagine NATO providing the peacekeepers here.
Russian approval of sanctions against Iran may have chilled relations between the two countries, but there is still enough room left for diplomacy to swing a cat. Iran plans to send a pair of Caucasus leopards to Russia to help efforts to repopulate the big cats in the Caucasus area.
Hunting and poaching have brought the Caucasus leopard to the brink of extinction; environmentalists rejoice at every occasional sighting of the animal in Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia. Some claim that the Azerbaijani-Armenian conflict over the disputed territory of Nagorno Karabakh has also got in the way of the leopards’ migration routes.
The Iranian gift will be placed in the Russian city of Sochi's zoo. Russia plans to start dispersing the cats on the northern flanks of the Caucasus ridge, hoping that the leopards will spread throughout the Caucasus area. Russia, in turn, is helping Iran restore the population of tigers in its northern province of Mazandaran.
Are Iran and Turkey planning to gang up against Armenia in Nagorno Karabakh? That's what an Armenian analyst says, according to ArmInfo:
The Turkish-Azerbaijani tandem and Iran have arrived at a certain arrangement regarding deployment of international forces in Nagorny Karabakh, the political expert Hmayak Hovhanissyan told media on Tuesday.
"Iran's stance has sharply changed and now Tehran comes out for change of the status-quo in Nagorny Karabakh and even offers its assistance in the process. Azerbaijan has already accepted that offer whereas Armenia has not responded to that yet. As regards my concern about possible resumption of military actions in Nagorny Karabakh, it is not exaggerated, otherwise President of Armenia Serzh Sargayan would not touched upon this topic during his visit to Brussels," he said.
This seems alarmist, but it is worth noting that Iran and Turkey have been cooperating more lately (most notably on the Iranian nuclear deal), and Iran seems to be moving a little bit away from Armenia, and the Organization of the Islamic Conference just came out with a statement declaring Armenia the aggressor in Karabakh. On the other hand, things are a little rocky between Turkey and Azerbaijan because of the Turkey-Armenia rapprochement. All this is to say that this is a pretty fluid situation, and so it seems possible that, for better or worse, there could be some movement soon on Karabakh.
And if Iran and Turkey fail to resolve the situation, it may fall to Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore to set things right. Today.az reports:
Hollywood actor Ashton Kutcher, reportedly, wishes to visit Baku, and support Azerbaijan in the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute...
Iran will not be joining the Shanghai Cooperation Organization when the group holds its summit next week in Tashkent. That's according to Itar-Tass, according to an unnamed Russian source:
Iran applied in 2008 to join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a security and defense bloc led by Beijing and Moscow and seen as a counterweight to NATO.
The SCO has not officially given a verdict on the Iranian application but Russia's ITAR-TASS news agency quoted the source, speaking during a meeting of SCO foreign ministers in Uzbekistan, as saying that sanctions were an obstacle.
""A country which wants to become a member of the SCO cannot be subject to UN Security Council sanctions,"" the Russian source said.
The group formally agreed to a means of admitting new members during the foreign minister's meeting last month. Pakistan wants in, and Uzbekistan has lobbied for them, and although that story above says India has shown little interest in joining despite Russia's prodding, that may be changing. According to The Hindu:
After being unenthusiastic to the idea of joining the six-country Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in its first term of governance, the United Progressive Alliance government now in its second term is now keen on joining the grouping. “We are interested in SCO membership. It is a very important organisation concerning the region,” sources in the government said.
The government had asked the missions in four central Asian countries, Russia and China to explore the nature of rule changes for joining the SCO that are under way. India would take a view on joining the SCO after the criteria are adopted, the sources said....
Of all of the accusations that have recently been flying in Baku about the U.S.'s alleged pro-Armenian bias, this is perhaps the silliest:
According to MP Eldar Ibrahimov, the United States is planning to use Armenia for offensive against Iran.
“The United States intends to dislocate its military bases in Armenia”, Public TV channel reports that the due statement was made by chairman of the committee on agrarian policy of Milli Medjlis Eldar Ibrahimov at a meeting with representatives of the Iranian parliament on April 27.
Ibrahimov went on to say that the U.S. approached Azerbaijan for help in launching an attack on Iran, but was rebuffed, and thus turned to Armenia.
It's worth noting that, while his allegations have been widely reported in Azerbaijan, the English-language Iranian media -- which are usually not shy at all about speculating about American aggression against Iran -- seem not to have mentioned this in their reports about the meetings.
Iran has announced that it is launching its first destroyer in the Caspian Sea. Although the reports have thus far not been very detailed, this would presumably be the newly developed Jamaran class of ship, which Iran first launched in the Persian Gulf earlier this year. That Iran would be deploying its new, advanced destroyer in the Caspian would seem to contradict Tehran's earlier pledges to not militarize the Caspian. For example, the commander of Iran's navy said this in 2007:
The commander further voiced opposition to the expansion of military capabilities in the Caspian Sea, saying, "We view the Caspian as a sea of peace and friendship and we believe upgrading and expanding military equipment in this sea is incorrect. Yet, we are always prepared to defend the country's interests."
What might Iran see as a threat in the Caspian? The U.S. is helping (to varying degrees) Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan build up their respective Caspian navies. And Russia's is still the most formidable navy in the sea. People who like to speculate on possible Caspian military conflicts usually point to Iran, specifically an incident in 2001 when an Iranian warship threatened an Azerbaijani oil research vessel.
This is especially interesting in light of a report by Jamestown from last week that suggests that Russia is moving in the other direction -- from opposing full demilitarization of the Caspian to supporting it:
Iran's English-language state-run station Press TV has quite a scoop:
Kyrgyzstan's new leaders have said they intend to remove a US military base, which currently serves as the premier air mobility hub for the US-led forces in Afghanistan, from their soil.
What is the source of this news? It's not clear, as there are no direct quotes, and Kyrgyzstan's new leader, Roza Otunbayeva, has already been on the record saying that nothing would happen to Manas.
It also seems wise to use a bit of skepticism when considering this report from Uzbekistan, from the Uzbek-language Voice of the Islamic Republic of Iran External Service, via BBC Monitoring:
Dust containing uranium penetrates into human blood, causing cancer. The dust with uranium containment has been frequent here, in Termiz since 2001 when the US-led military operations against the Taleban started in Afghanistan.
Of late, cases of illnesses with various types of cancer, especially, lung cancer, has increased in Termiz.
Though this phenomenon has officially been acknowledged, the problem itself should be studied thoroughly.
I regularly follow Press TV, and I hadn't previously seen much indication of trying to stir up anti-American rumors in Central Asia. Did this start with the whole Jundullah/Manas thing? Will be interesting to see if this continues.
Jundullah's spokesman speaks to an Arabic newspaper, and asks many of the same questions as I did about why the group's leader would be going to Manas Transit Center in Kyrgyzstan:
Ridiculing Tehran's official version of the arrest of Rigi, Narui asked: "How can they say he was traveling to Kyrgyzstan to meet with US officials at a time when there is a large US base in Afghanistan? Why should he travel to that country to meet with them when there was no need for him to do so because there are Americans in Afghanistan and Pakistan?"
He also asked: "Which is closer? Kyrgyzstan or Dubai? Why would he take a long route and travel via Dubai while he knew that the plane would fly in Iranian airspace and that there was a possibility he would be kidnapped?" "That is why we say they are lying", he remarked.
Nauri says that, instead, the U.S., in cooperation with Mossad, arrested Rigi in Kandahar. Which, if it were true, would raise another large bunch of questions, about how and/or why the U.S. would have handed him over to the Iranian authorities. More to come from this, for sure.
So why is Iran bringing Kyrgyzstan, and Manas Air Base, into its allegations that the U.S. was supporting a Sunni extremist anti-Tehran group? Richard Weitz, sometime EurasiaNet contributor, writing in World Politics Review argues that it is to thwart U.S. influence in Central Asia:
A primary Iranian objective in Central Asia has been to keep governments in the region from aligning themselves with U.S. efforts to isolate Tehran or pressure the Iranian government to change its policies. Ideally, Tehran wants these governments to curtail the access that U.S. military forces have enjoyed in Central Asia since the September 2001 terrorist attacks against the United States:
[T]he Iranian government is seeking to exploit the incident to advance its geopolitical goals in Central Asia. Rigi's statement implied that the Americans sought bases in Central Asia not for their stated aim of defending the region against the Taliban and al-Qaida, but rather to wage a covert war against the Iranian government. Russian television has since quoted Kyrgyz citizens criticizing the continued American access to the base. English-language Russia Today cited Kyrgyz political analyst Toktogul Kakchekeev as saying, "It's sad that the U.S. air base has now become a transit corridor for pro-American militants from Sunni insurgent groups which organize attacks in Iran." In the past, some Russian officials have pressed Kyrgyzstan and other Central Asian governments to limit the U.S. military presence in their countries.
So, who was the "high-profile" American that Abdulmalak Rigi, the leader of the Sunni Muslim militant group Jundullah, was on his way to meet in Kyrgyzstan? None other than Richard Holbrooke, says official Iranian media.
Except, Rigi was arrested en route to Kyrgyzstan on Tuesday, when Holbrooke was long gone from Kyrgyzstan, in Berlin, already having stopped in Tbilisi.
And anyway, as plausible as it may be that the U.S. is supporting Jundullah, would it really be Holbrooke who is behind it? Unlikely.
