Iran's Policies Toward the Karabakh Conflict

Abstract

Ethnic kinship and family ties between the Iranian Azerbaijanis and the people of Republic of Azerbaijan and the advanced level of Azerbaijan–Israel and Azerbaijan–Turkey relations have been only some of the factors that have affected Iran’s stance and policies toward the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Against the backdrop of these factors, Iran has followed several key objectives, such as to prevent any extension of the conflict inwards to its territories and to block the intervention of the non-regional global powers in the settlement of the conflict. Tehran, seeking to avert the use of the conflict by the US, NATO and Israel as an instrument to build influence in the South Caucasus, advocated its resolution within the frames including only those states attached to the region in the formats of 3+2 (i.e., Russia, Turkey and Iran + Armenia and Azerbaijan) or 3+3 (i.e., Russia, Turkey and Iran + Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia). On this conceptual basis, this chapter differentiates the following stages in the evolution of Iran’s policies toward the Karabakh conflict: 1991–1994, 1995–2001, 2002–2012 and 2013–2019. It is claimed that the 44-day war between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the fall of 2020 has opened a new chapter in this context. This timeframe depicts shake-ups in Iran’s policies concerning the conflict ranging from supporting Azerbaijan in the early 1990s to declaring support to the maintenance of the status-quo established by the Russia-brokered ceasefire agreement in May 1994. The chapter sheds light also on the motivation and challenges of Iran’s attempts to play a mediating role between the two conflicting states during both the First and Second Karabakh Wars. It concludes that, although Iran has managed, to a considerable degree, to prevent any adverse effect of the conflict on its domestic stability, it has largely failed in its mediation efforts, to the detriment of Tehran’s regional ambitions.