THE Azeri newspaper Zarkalo has been discussing what role Azerbaijan should take if the US launches an attack on Iran.
Its conclusion is that Azerbaijan will need security guarantees from the USA if the latter decides to punish Iran for ignoring warnings about its nuclear programme by taking military action, but Azerbaijan will hardly be able to remain neutral.
It added: ‘The Kurds in Iran might support the USA which would be dangerous to ethnic Azerbaijanis in Iran’, the paper said.
‘If the USA did go ahead and invade, then Azerbaijan and Turkey should take the Azerbaijani-populated areas in Iran under their control to prevent ethnic cleansing.’
The newspaper’s latest report on March 3 on the issue is headlined: ‘They will not leave us in peace even if we try to preserve “neutrality” in the Iran crisis’.
It states: ‘The deadline set by the UN Security Council for Iran to cease its nuclear programme expired on February 21.
‘Iran, naturally, has refused to carry out this request, so now the problem of its nuclear programme is being elevated to a higher diplomatic level.
‘Open economic sanctions by the UN against Iran are now almost inevitable, or at least, the USA will insist on them.
‘Besides, two US assault carriers are already in the Persian Gulf. Despite the fact that officials in Washington deny the likelihood of military action, practically everyone throughout the world, including our region, and even in Armenia, is waiting, as they say, in anticipation.
‘ “A US attack on Iran will have very negative consequences for Armenia which finds itself between the devil and the deep blue sea,” Armenia’s Iran expert Tadevos Charchyan has said in an interview for PanArmenian.net website.
‘He believes the choice will be a very difficult one. “On the one hand, there are the financial and economic aspects, and on the other, there is neighbourly and friendly Iran, with whom Armenia has much in common. Armenia cannot remain neutral because there is much that links us, Armenia, with the international community”.
‘What Charchyan is really saying is that at the end of the day Armenia will have to support the sanctions of the international community, including military sanctions.
In other words, he says, Armenian today must be prepared to abandon “neighbourly and friendly Iran”.
‘We would like to make the point that Georgia has stated officially that it is prepared to examine the question of the deployment of US radar stations on its territory.
‘Georgia has made its position basically clear.
‘Whatever the USA requires is acceptable to Georgia. In other words, in the event of military action against Iran the USA can count fully on Georgia’s support.
‘And, in actual fact, Armenia has no other choice, either. It can no longer allow itself the luxury of an anti-US position in the event of a military action against Iran, because its outcome has already been determined.
‘Anti-Americanism in this event would mean a complete blockade and Armenia’s isolation for many years.
‘The problem is that if Russia lets Washington “deal with” Iran, then Armenia will lose all its importance to Moscow as an outpost, because the whole of the South Caucasus will automatically come under the sphere of US interests.
‘Moreover, Armenia is not one of those countries that is prepared to remain a Russian outpost on “hunger rations”. And nobody, including Armenia, is prepared to be obedient to Russia for nothing. But the whole problem is that in that case there will be no reason to pay Armenia.
‘Despite the solemn statements of officials at the highest level, Azerbaijan will not be able to stand aside in the event of a US military action against Iran.
‘In the first place, whether we like it or not, they will not leave us in peace.
‘The former president of Iran Rafsanjani, whose supporters today comprise the majority in the Supreme Spiritual Council, recently said that there are US military bases in Azerbaijan.
‘Essentially, this means that strategic facilities in Azerbaijan have already been included by the Tehran regime in the list of targets against which will be liable to retaliatory strikes in the event of the US military action against Iran.
‘We cannot defend ourselves and Russia has no intention of doing so.
‘This means that whether we like it or not, we will still need certain guarantees of security from the West, and to be precise, the USA.
‘Second, we ourselves cannot stand aside, because about 30 million of the Iranian population are Azerbaijanis, and most of them live in Southern Azerbaijan (northwestern Iran).
‘Suffice to recall that the preservation of “neutrality” in the Iraq crisis cost Turkey dearly.
‘Moreover, the USA’s “allies”, the Kurds, are essentially engaging in ethnic cleansing in relation to the Iraqi Turkomans (in fact, ethnic Azerbaijanis), but they have no intention of declaring the creation of a Kurdish state on the border with Turkey.
‘One should remember that in both Iran and in Iraq the Kurds, unlike the Azerbaijanis, are pretty well armed and are fighting against the government forces.
‘If one assumes that the joint Iraqi-Iranian Kurd detachments might on this occasion, too, act as allies of the USA, then we might be facing a new kind of ethnic cleansing.
‘If events develop in this direction the joint Azerbaijani-Turkish forces will be left with no other choice than to take the territories populated by the Azerbaijanis under their control.
‘In the course of time it was the Azerbaijani president himself who literally a year ago said there are not 8 million of us in the world, but 50 million.’
