By Dr. Ahmad Kazemi

With regards to the presence of Russian and Iranian professors and researchers present at this meeting, I would like to thank the Iranian Governance and Policy Think Tank (GPTT) and the Russian Foreign Relations Council (RIAC) think tank for holding this meeting. This round-table is held due to the intensification of interventionist by some extra-regional actors and the cooperation of some intra-regional actors to implement an imposed Western order in the Caucasus and Central Asia. This is a common and increasing threats against Iran and Russia in this region, as a part of the historic heartland. As a result, the urgent necessity and opportunities for Tehran-Moscow cooperation have also increased. I have chosen the title of my speech ” The opportunities and necessities of cooperation between Iran and Russia in the Caucasus and Central Asia in the transition to the new regional order.”.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Caucasus and Central Asia region has always been one of the important focus of cooperation between Iran and Russia. Examples just like ending the civil war and national reconciliation in Tajikistan, numerous cooperations in the Caspian Sea, the 1994 ceasefire in The Karabakh war, confronting the export of extremism from Afghanistan to Central Asia, and finally confronting the expansion of NATO to the Caucasus. Despite this record, the political and security equations of the Caucasus region and Central Asia have undergone fundamental changes during the last four years under the influence of the second and third Karabakh wars in 2020 and 2023 and the consequences of the Ukraine war (2022).

There are many evidences that the Second Karabakh War, under the cover-up of liberating the occupied lands of the Republic of Azerbaijan, was an international design and plan by some NATO member powers, led by UK, to create geopolitical changes in the region. The main goal was to establish a new and favorable western order. In the Caucasus and Central Asia region, and the expulsion of Iran and Russia from these regions. As we get further away from 2020, the dimensions of NATO and its ally’s actions (especially UK and the Israeli regime) to weaken Iran and Russia in this region become more obvious. The Caucasus and Central Asia is the only geographic region in the world that is adjacent to three important powers that support the multipolar order, namely Russia, China and Iran. Considering the geopolitical, transitory, energy, commercial, civilizational and social capacities of these regions, the establishment of any western order will pave the way for new and emerging crisis against Iran, Russia and China.

Considering the actions of the foreign actors with significant role of the UK and the Israeli regime have been pursuing with the cooperation of Baku-Ankara and the alignment of the western government of Nikol Pashinyan since 2018. The most important goals of the Brithis-Zionist-Turkish front in the region, which are considered common threats to Iran and Russia, are as follows:

  • · Establishing a non-Russian, non-Iranian and non-native order in the region based on the Anglo-Saxon order and through the promotion of the British pan-Turanian ethnic sedition in the region.
  • · The transformation of Brithis Pan-Turanianism into the ideology of forming a Turkish world as a pressure leverage against Iran, Russia and China, as well as balancing power against the Shanghai Cooperation Organization through the so-called organization of Turkish governments and turning it into an unite of NATO in the region in the form of the idea of “Turkish NATO”
  • · Implementation of NATO’s Torani Corridor conspiracy in southern Armenia in order to realize the long-standing dream of connecting with the so-called Turkish world under the cover of the corridor known as the Zangzor Corridor and using Russia’s transit diificulties after the war in Ukraine and at the same time offering tactical concessions to Moscow in the field of transit and energy transfer.
  • · Providing ground for the implementation of the last stage of NATO’s eastward expansion through the expansion and membership of NATO in the Caucasus and Central Asia, especially after April 2005 and after the visit of George.W.Bush to Georgia and his support for the membership of the Caucasus countries in NATO. This cooperation of the region’s countries followed by various NATO programs, including the Partnership for Peace program, individual participation, and participation in the Euro-Atlantic Cooperation Council and the NATO Parliamentary Assembly.

At the same time, we can mention other common threats:

  • · Politicization of energy equations with the focus on removing Iran and Russia from energy and transit plans (in line with the American policy of everything without Iran and Russia, which has been followed since the Clinton era)
  • · The implementation of the American Trans-Caspian project and the transit of energy pipelines through the Caspian seafloor and the resulting environmental threats.
  • · The activity of US military biological laboratories in all three Caucasus countries and some Central Asian countries

In parallel with these goals and movements, the Israeli regime, with the support of Ilham Aliyev’s government, and through providing about seventy percent of the weapons of the Republic of Azerbaijan, deploying its military in some of the Azeri’s bases, establishing a regional cyber security center and special security offices and Spying and settlement of Jews from Ukraine and other regional countries in the Republic of Azerbaijan and dozens of other related actions have tried to turn Baku into a regional base of Zionism.

Baku and Ankara are at the forefront of these threats based on the Anglo-Saxon order. Along with Pashinyan’s Western approach, the behavior of the Republic of Azerbaijan after the 2020 war indicates the main role of Baku in the process that Westerners call Russia’s kick out from the Caucasus. This role is the continuation of the traditional approach of Baku, which has already been shown in the expulsion of Russian border guards, ending the Russian military presence in the Qabala base, and taking the lead in establishing Western-oriented agreements in the region, such as the Guam and Trabzon agreements. At the very beginning of the Ukraine war, and during Ilham Aliyev’s visit to Russia, the “Alliance Coalition” statement was signed between Baku and Moscow, but it didn’t take long for Aliyev and Pashinyan to align themselves, and the Western format of peace talks replaced the Russian format. Also, by blocking the Lachine Corridor, invading parts of Armenian territory in September 2022, the third Karabakh war in September 2023, and presenting the Kaliningrad model for communication with Nakhchivan, Baku practically violated the Moscow 2020 agreement, and provided the necessary justification for Pashinyan’s western policies and destruction The image of Moscow in the public opinion of Armenia was provided. Turkey, under the pretext and excuse of implementing the Montreux Treaty during Ukraine war, accompanied the process of pressure on Russia in the Black Sea and is following the same approach in the Caucasus.

A close look at the set of these developments demosntrates that the most important excuse for the supporters and implementers of the Anglo-Saxon order plan in the Caucasus and Central Asia is the issue of opening the communication lines between the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Autonomous Republic of Nakhchivan. By rejecting Armenia’s “intersection of peace” proposal, the Republic of Azerbaijan showed that it is looking for an extra-territorial corridor from the south of Armenia, which complements the territorial claims of the official Baku authorities on the south of Armenia and applying the title of Zangzor to Sivnik province. This is despite the fact that after the ethnic cleansing of the native Armenians from Karabagh and the destruction of the Lachin Corridor, Baku and Ankara do not have the legal, moral and even political authority to request an extraterritorial corridor from Armenia. Baku and Ankara’s strange insistence on taking territory from the south of Armenia strengthens speculations about NATO’s Turani Corridor conspiracy and the creation of the so-called Turkish Empire in the form of the Organization of Turkic States to weaken the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

In this situation, Iran believes in the necessity of respecting the principle of sovereignty, territorial integrity and international borders and the necessity of cooperation instead of competition in the fields of transit and energy. In continuation of its three-decade role in the land connection between the Republic of Azerbaijan and Nakhchivan, Iran proposed the Aras Corridor and initiated its arrengments. Obviously, Russia’s support for this transit plan will be effective in neutralizing the mentioned threats. Along with the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway in Turkey, the Aras Corridor can become a part of the international transport plan known as the Middle Corridor and neutralize NATO plans to strike the North-South and East-West corridors between the three countries of Iran, Russia and China. Along with this strategy, cooperation in the following fields between Iran and Russia is necessary:

  • · Strengthening the maritime transport corridor through the Caspian Sea, especially with regard to the opening of the Rasht-Caspian railway line and with the approach of turning this sea into a sea of peace, friendship, cooperation and neighborhood.
  • · Supporting the railway lines of China and Russia to Central Asia and Iran and from Iran to Turkey, Iraq and the Persian Gulf
  • · Strengthening all the four corridors connecting Iran to Russia in the form of the north and south corridors and avoiding from focusing only on the path of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Considering of the US approach (Pentagon officer Michael Dorn’s plan) to tie and limit the transit capacity of Iran and Russia to the Republic of Azerbaijan
  • · Not supporting the alleged Zangzor Corridor and any idea based on the extraterritorial corridor, and preferring long-term interests in regulating relations with Baku and Yerevan.
  • · Countering the transformation of the Caucasus into a weapons arsenal of Tel Aviv and Ankara, as well as countering the sedition of Turanizing the Caucasus and Central Asia by strengthening the historical, cultural and civilizational commonalities with all the nations of this region, including ethnic groups and minorities, and countering the process of distorting the history of the region.
  • · Developing the activities of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization as a structural pillar of local order in the region and strengthening the format of cooperation in the form of the 3+3 model that has been offered by Iran for about two decades.
  • · Paying significant attention to the cooperation capacities of the two countries in the Caucasus and Central Asia in the “Comprehensive Cooperation Agreement between Iran and Russia” and accelerating its signing in view of the commencement of the new administration of Iran.

In the hope of strengthening the relations between Iran and Russia.