The Circum-Caspian Areas Within the Eurasian International Relationships At the Time of Peter the Great and Nadir-Shah Afshar

Abstract

Under the current NATO eastward expansion, the global Western policies get to implicate the strategically vital areas enjoying advantageous geographical positions as well as substantial resources in energy, assets and manpower. Also emerging within a certain framework of the Eurasian space among those regions, beside the Near and Middle East, Balkans and North Caucasus were the near-Caspian areas, attracting not only the regional competitors like Iran, Russia and Turkey but also the western powers, US in particular, that has declared this zone to be the sphere of its vital interest. Projects for rehabilitating Great Silk Road, constructing the transcontinental oil and gas pipelines from Asia through Caspian Sea area to South Caucasus, Turkey and Western Europe, plans to deploy the NATO military bases in South Caucasus being developed within the last few years can be classified as merely individual fragments supporting the framing of those areas within the focus of the world political interest.' In light of what has already been stated it seems expedient to peer into the periods of the Circum-Caspian zone featuring continuous regional geopolitical factors generating the international relations throughout the history to date. One such historical period for the Circum-Caspian zone with the adjacent Eurasian areas was the epoch of Peter I and Nadir Shah Afshar characterized by the peak antagonism for leadership between Russia, Turkey and Iran on the one hand, and England and France on the other hand, the states supporting the former countries against Russia. This approach to the problem shows that the Caucasus-Near-Caspian region bridging Europe and Asia, East and West, North and South, integrating the economic, political, ethnic, confessional and cultural processes, having repetitively fallen amidst the crucial military and political occurrences, is again featured within the system of major events and their contemporary interaction. In the 16th early 17th cc. a decisive influence upon the International relations at the NearCaspian areas was rendered by the policies of Iran and Turkey influenced first by Portugal and Holland, and later by England and France. This process had been initiated by the Iranian-Turkish wars reflected in the summary International agreements. A milestone among those was the Qasre-Shirin (Zohab) treaty of 1639 awarding to Iran the littoral Dagestan, Shirvan, Eastern Armenia, Eastern Georgia, some parts of Western Armenia, including Diarbekir, etc., Luristan and Mosul with their provinces, as well as the cities Najaf and Karbala. Turkey received the western areas of Transcaucasia and Baghdad.2 The status quo established by that treaty held out till the Caspian Campaign by Peter I and the conquest of Iran by the Afghans in 1722. A distinguishing feature of forming the international relations in the indicated region since the mid-17th century was the emergence of the third force on the Caucasian skyline the rising Russia that conquered Astrakhan with an outlet to the Caspian Sea in 1556, annexed Kabarda in 1557 and seized Azov in 1700. However, the determinant role of the Near-Caspian areas in the Eurasian International Relations made itself manifest in the major military and political events which were inscribed into the epoch of Peter I and Nadir-Shah Afshar and which grabbed into thieir orbit not only Russia, but also its major geopolitical adversaries: England, France, Sweden, Poland, et al. This collision in international relations caused by the interference of the mentioned countries had been shaping around certain key events: the Caspian Campaign by Peter I, the regional delimitations between Russia and Turkey, the Russian-Iranian