INSTITUTE FOR SECURITY POLICY (ISP) WORKING PAPER THE 2020 NAGORNO - KARABAKH CONFLICT FROM IRAN’S PERSPECTIVE by Vali KALEJI Center for Strategic Studies (CSS) The COVID-19 pandemic: impact for the post-Soviet space and Russia’s aspirations VIENNA 2020 TABLE OF CONTENTS I. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................................ 3 II. CURRENT FLOW OF WAR IN NAGORNO-KARABAKH: SECURITY CONCERNS IN IRAN'S NORTHWESTERN BORDERS ................................................................................................................................. 5 III. IRAN SECURITY AND MILITARY REACTIONS .......................................................................................... 13 IV. IRAN’S DIPLOMATIC DYNAMISM ............................................................................................................. 17 V. ANALYZING IRAN’S FOREIGN POLICY TOWARD THE 2020 NAGORNO-KARABAKH CONFLICT ....... 26 VI. CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................................. 29 1 ABOUT THE AUTHOR Dr. Vali Kaleji is an expert on Central Asia and Caucasian Studies in Tehran, Iran. His recent publications in Persian: The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO): Goals, Functions and Perspectives (2010), South Caucasus as a Regional Security Complex, (2014), Political Developments in the Republic of Armenia, 1988- 2013 (2014), Iran, Russia and China in Central Asia, Cooperation and Conflict with US Foreign Policy in Central Asia, (2015), US Foreign Policy in Central Asia: Process and Perspectives (2015) and Iran and the South Caucasus Republics (2017). Publications in English: Current Trends and Tendencies in the Political and Security Dimension of the North and South Caucasus: A View from Iran, Vienna based Institute for Security Policy (ISP) (September 2020), “Expanding Armenia - Israel Relations: Implications for Iran’s Foreign Policy in the South Caucasus”, The Central Asia-Caucasus Institute (CACI), American Foreign Policy Council (September 10, 2020), Eight Principles of Iran’s Foreign Policy towards The Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict, Valdai Discussion Club, Moscow (October 9, 2020) and Nagorno-Karabakh: Transformation from an Ethnic-Territorial to Ethnic-Religious Conflict, The Russian International Affairs Council (RIAC), Moscow (October 21, 2020), From Ceasefire to Peace: The Necessity for a Russia, Iran and Turkey Partnership in the Karabakh Peace Talks, Valdai Discussion Club, Moscow (October 30, 2020). E-mail address: [email protected] 2 I. INTRODUCTION The name Karabakh is more associated with one of the most permanent ethnical conflicts of the last decades than its outstanding history and culture or its beautiful nature. In the political literature of the South Caucasus, the Karabakh conflict together with other ethnic crises of Abkhazia and South Ossetia are normally referred to as “frozen conflicts” or “unresolved conflicts”. The Karabakh conflict and the military encounter between Armenia and Azerbaijan that extended from February 20, 1988, to May 12, 1994, culminated in Armenia’s control of 14167 square kilometres of lands including the cities of Kalbajar, Qubadli, Jabrayil, Füzuli, Zanglan, Agdam, Lachin and Shusha. As a result of the war, more than 35 thousand people were dead and 800 thousand others displaced and forced to migrate from the disputed lands. This protracted and costly war came to an end by the Bishkek agreement of May 8, 1994, through a truce and not a peace accord. It is clear that a truce is a temporary halt of a war or military encounter and is essentially different from a peace treaty that results in a complete and permanent end to a dispute. The transition from the truce to a peace treaty in the Karabakh dispute was assigned to the representatives of the Minsk Group affiliated to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) comprising of the three countries of Russia, France and the United States. However, despite two decades of efforts and negotiation, the Karabakh region is yet to get passed the truce phase into a peace. During the past two decades, the ceasefire is breached in the Karabakh and the contact lines of its surrounding regions for several times by the Armenian and Azerbaijani parties. The most significant cases of violation of truce are the relatively comprehensive military encounter in the course of the four days war of April 2016, the four days war of July 2020 3 and the latest conflict between the two sides starting from the morning of Sunday, September 27, 2020. The recent clashes in Karabakh are highly significant in terms of their extension and intensity, the volume of human and financial loses the level of preparedness, the curfew impositions and the general mobilization in Armenia and Azerbaijan as well as the all-out political and military support provided by the Turkish government and military to the Republic of Azerbaijan. Indeed, fragile back-to-back ceasefires brokered first by Russia and then the United States this month have given way to renewed fighting by Armenia and Azerbaijan. Much of the recent fighting has concentrated along the border with Iran, where ethnic Armenian forces have accused Azerbaijani personnel of taking shelter, and over which Azerbaijani drones have crashed.1 1 Tom O'Connor, Iran Boosts Border Defense against Armenia-Azerbaijan Conflict, Israel and ISIS, The Newsweek, October 27, 2020. 4 II. CURRENT FLOW OF WAR IN NAGORNO-KARABAKH: SECURITY CONCERNS IN IRAN'S NORTHWESTERN BORDERS Geographically, Iran has a special situation in the southern borders of South Caucasus. Among three neighbours of the region including Iran, Russia and Turkey, only Iran has a border with Nagorno-Karabakh and is the only country that has a border with two parts of the Republic of Azerbaijan including mainland of Azerbaijan and the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic. Iran's north-western borders with the South Caucasus are 800 kilometres in length. The Iranian provinces of Ardabil and Eastern Azerbaijan have 369 kilometres and 200 kilometres of joint borders with the Republic of Azerbaijan respectively. Eastern Azarbaijan is the only Iranian province that shares borders with Armenia. This borderline is 35 kilometres long. This border is termed as a lifeline for three million population of Armenia. Iran is also the only country adjacent to the disputed region of Karabakh. None of Georgia, Russia and Turkey is in such close proximity to these disputes. 5 Therefore, the recent Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has directly affected Iran's northwestern areas. Since the beginning of the war, several rockets and mortar shells have landed inside Iran. Especially the Iranian village of Khoda Afarin, located on the Eastern Azarbaijan Province in Armenia border, has been hit by the artilleries of the conflicting parties several times. Aliyar Rastgoo, the political and security deputy governor of East Azerbaijan, stated 21 October 2020 that from the beginning of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, a total of 68 rockets had hit the border areas of Iran, adding: "Only today, 71 rockets have hit the village of Khodaafarin.”.2 Indeed, many drones came down inside northwestern Iranian territories along Iran’s borders with Armenia and Republic of Azerbaijan. For example, a drone crashed in the border county of Parsabad-Moghan in the northwestern Iranian province of Ardebil on October 13, 2020. In another case, a drone crashed in national and grassland areas near the village of Qara Qouch in Manjavan district, Khoda Afarin region in East Azarbaijan province 2 More than 70 rockets hit northwestern Iran today in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Iran Press, 21 October 2020. 6 on 20 October 2020. In reaction to these events, Iran Ministry of Foreign Affairs has sent official letters to the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Republic of Armenia and has voiced the Iranian government’s strong protest at the violation of the country’s territorial integrity, the harm to security, and the financial damages inflicted on the Iranian citizens after shells and rockets fired in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict hit the territory of Iran.3 Indeed, the sound of the bullets, shells and missiles fired by the Armenian and Azerbaijani armed forces are heard in other Iranian villages close to the northwestern border. This puts Iran in a sensitive situation so that tension and war in Karabakh region and its surrounding areas directly impact the security of Iran’s northwestern borders. The firing of projectiles toward the Iranian territories was so repetitive that the Iranian Foreign Ministry warned Azerbaijan and Armenia against violating the Iranian soil. "Movements in the border areas of our country are being seriously and sensitively monitored by the Islamic Republic of Iran, and in this regard, while declaring any attack by any of the warring parties in the region on our country is intolerable, we seriously warn all 3 Iran Sends Protest Letters to Baku, Yerevan after Being Hit by War Shells, Tasnim News, October, 07, 2020. 7 parties to seriously take care in this regard", the Foreign Ministry said in a statement. 4 Indeed, Iran's Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli has made it clear that should the fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh spread to Iranian soil, his country would react. Fazli made the remark after a missile from the combat zone hit a village in