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12 August 2012 Last updated at 00:30 GMT
Why Azerbaijan is closer to Israel than Iran[image: James Reynolds] By
James Reynolds BBC News, Baku
Life at the Iran-Azerbaijan border
First of all, you need to ask for an appointment well in advance. Security
agents call your head office to make sure you are who you say you are.
If your credentials check out, an appointment is made, and a guard escorts
you to the top floor of the building. Another guard calls you in, tests
your equipment and ask you to leave behind your mobile phone. You are taken
through further checks and invited to sit in a corridor and admire works of
art on the wall as you wait.
Then, just a few minutes behind schedule, one of the most fortified men in
the Caucasus region arrives for his interview.
Michael Lotem is Israel's Ambassador to Azerbaijan. His embassy is the
closest that Israel physically gets to its principal enemy, Iran. From the
embassy it is only a four-hour drive south to the Iranian border.
The Israeli embassy in Baku is an important, and occasionally a dangerous,
outpost. In January 2012, Azerbaijan's government said it broke up an
Iranian plot to kill the ambassador.
"I can tell you that the Iranians don't sit still for a second," says Mr
Lotem slowly, as he fiddles with his shirt sleeve. "But I'm not worried
about my security. I have full confidence in the Azeri security services."
'More Tel Aviv than Tehran'
Israel and Azerbaijan have had diplomatic relations since April 1992, six
months after the republic declared its independence from the Soviet Union.
Israel and the secular government of Azerbaijan share the same goal: to
check the spread of political Islam in general and Iran in particular.
[image: Israel's Ambassador to Azerbaijan, Michael Lotem] Israeli
Ambassador Michael Lotem says his country and Azerbaijan share the same
world view
Theirs is an alliance reinforced by hardware. In February 2012, Israel sold
Azerbaijan $1.6bn (1.3bn euros) of sophisticated weapons systems.
"We share the same view of the world, I guess," says Michael Lotem. "We
share quite a few common problems. For us Israelis to find a Muslim country
which is so open, so friendly, so progressive, is not something the
Israelis take for granted."
Earlier this year, America's Foreign Policy magazine suggested the alliance
between Israel and Azerbaijan went deeper than many had previously thought.
The magazine reported that Israel had secured an agreement to use
Azerbaijan's airfields in case it went ahead with a military strike against
Iran's nuclear facilities.
If true, this would give Israel a significant tactical advantage. But
Israel denies the claim.
"That's sheer science fiction", says the ambassador, "or maybe we should
drop the science out of it. The aim is having very solid relations with
Azerbaijan."
Azerbaijan's population is mostly Shia Muslim. But its government is
intensely secular.
A lone shop in the centre of Baku, called simply The Muslim Shop, shows how
rare the public expression of Islam is in the capital.
In the evenings, restaurants serve Turkish-made beer to customers in
Fountains Square. Most women do not wear headscarves. The centre of town
has a McDonalds, a Mothercare and a Versace shop. Baku feels more like Tel
Aviv than Tehran. The government is determined to stop its Islamic
neighbour from encroaching.
"Azerbaijan naturally rejects the Iranian Islamic influence because it is
perceived as a threat to the very nation state," says Leila Alieva, the
Director of the independent Centre for National and International Studies
in Baku.
"On the other hand, Azerbaijan has always enjoyed a very good relationship
with the Jewish community."
Strike 'disastrous'
But there are those in Azerbaijan who disagree with their government's
embrace of Israel.
Ilgar Ibrahimoglu is an Islamic cleric who campaigns for a greater role for
Islam in Azerbaijan.
He works from a small office and prayer room in Baku. Guests are invited to
take off their shoes when they enter in order to respect Islamic custom.
Mr Ibrahimglu enters the room, sits behind a desk and warns that previous
journalists have made him look stupid. So he says that he will speak in
short sentences, perhaps conscious that Azerbaijan's government will keep a
close eye on his words.
"Iran is a Muslim country and a close neighbour of Azerbaijan", he says,
"but I won't say more. Even if this was a live interview I'd say the same
thing for five hours straight."
But when the staccato conversation turns to Israel, the cleric decides to
loosen his rules and speak slightly more expansively.
"Azerbaijan shouldn't be friendly with a country that carries out state
terror against another people, the Palestinians. Israel can't beat Iran. It
couldn't win in Gaza or Lebanon, and it won't win in Iran."
The cleric's words won't make Azerbaijan switch alliances. In May 2012, two
Azerbaijani poets were detained in Iran on charges of espionage.
Azerbaijan's government has since advised its citizens not to travel to the
Islamic Republic.
Elman Abdullayev, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, deals with Iran every day.
He studied in California, and bounces from foot-to-foot as he talks.
He apologises for the renovations being made to the Ministry's Soviet era
building (the apology is prompted when we pass a man who accidentally pulls
a door off its hinges.)
"Azerbaijan has always been famous for its modernistic approach - for its
secularism." Mr Abdullayev says. "You know we have been first secular state
in the Muslim East. So we develop our relations with different countries
based on our national interest - be it Israel, be it Muslim countries."
Mr Abdullayev rejects the reports that Azerbaijan might lease its airbases
to Israel. But what would his government do if its ally, Israel, strikes
its neighbour, Iran?
"This a hypothetical question which would be difficult to answer," he says.
"We think that the Iranian issue has to be resolved diplomatically,
peacefully, politically, because anything like that [a military strike]
would be disastrous for the whole region, for all of us."
Iranian suspicions
Relations between Azerbaijan and Iran are made more difficult because they
share not just a border, but a common heritage.
The Azeri people once lived under the Persian Empire. In 1813, the Treaty
of Gulistan after the first Russo-Persian war split the ethnic Azeri people
into two.
[image: View of Baku, Azerbaijan's capital] Although Azerbaijan is
predominately Muslim, the country separates religion from state
Those in the north lived under Russian, then Soviet rule - and are now in
independent Azerbaijan. Those in the south lived under the Persian Empire -
and are now in the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Today, around nine million ethnic Azeris live in Azerbaijan. But even more
ethnic Azeris live across the border in Iran. Figures show that there are
around 10-20 million Azeris in Iran - around a fifth of the country's
population. Millions more Iranians have Azeri ancestry, including Iran's
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Among many Azeris there is a desire for reunification.
Simon Aruz is an ethnic Azeri from Iran. He worked as a writer and
political activist and campaigned for better rights for the Azeri people in
the Persian State. In 2009, he fled the country for Azerbaijan.
"We used to live under pressure in Iran," he says. "We are always thinking
about our brothers, our sisters, our family. I hope they can be free soon. "
Such words make Iran suspicious. The government of the Islamic Republic is
concerned that Azerbaijan wants to steal both land and people - a charge
denied by Azerbaijan's government. The tensions of a shared, divided
heritage are now magnified by the different ways in which each government
sees the world.
Border tension
The overnight train from Baku to the southern border town of Astara leaves
at 11pm and makes its way slowly south, along the coast of the Caspian Sea.
Some travellers fall asleep immediately. Others drink and listen to the
chorus of frogs outside.
"Ask me anything about the Iranians," says one man who says he is
travelling to Astara simply to drop off a music CD with friends. "I know
them better than they know themselves."
Early in the morning, the train arrives in Astara. My colleagues and I take
a taxi to see the Iranian border. We stop at a gap in the trees half way up
a hill.
A group of Polish tourists is already standing by the fence. They are in
Azerbaijan to watch a Europa League football match - and happily pose for
photos with Iran as their backdrop.
The Islamic republic is just on the other side of the fence. Houses with
white walls and red roofs are clearly visible across the valley. Cars in
northern Iran head towards the border crossing with Azerbaijan.
The Polish tourists head off to watch their match. After a few minutes the
security forces arrive and order my colleagues and me to accompany them to
their base.
They inspect the TV pictures we have filmed which show little more than the
fields of northern Iran and order us to delete the footage.
They explain that broadcasting the pictures would get them into trouble -
they say that they do not want to do anything to increase tension with
their Islamic neighbour. The commander, a vocal Wayne Rooney fan, finally
drops us off at a hotel in Astara.
[image: Ismail] Ismail took his sick son to Iran for a $6,000 operation
after local treatments failed
At the border crossing itself, crowds of Azeris load up their cars with
boxes of food and sweets. Day-to-day goods cost less across the border in
Iran. One woman has brought back soap, bananas, biscuits for her
grandchildren.
"We are going to Baku," says Ali Mani, a carpet merchant from Iran. "Our
friends invited us. There are some restrictions in Iran that we don't see
here. It's interesting here.
"We haven't any problem with Azerbaijan and I know Azerbaijan language,"
adds his friend in English.
Our interpreter asks them in Azeri if they would like to talk about Iran
and Israel. They say no, and also decline to have their picture taken.
Next to the border gate, a driver called Ismail stands next to his car. His
23-year-old son is slumped in the front seat, trying to hide from the sun,
barely able to move. The two are returning from a trip to hospital in
Tehran.
"My son was having treatment here in Azerbaijan but it wasn't doing
anything," Ismail says. "The doctors didn't say what his problem was.
That's why some people advised me to go to Tehran.
"We went there, they carried out a stomach operation and it was successful.
My attitude [towards Iran] is very positive. I went there with big hopes -
for my son to be cured there. It was successful. So I'm happy."
Ismail says that his son's operation cost $6,000. He has paid a first
instalment to the Iranian hospital and has promised them he will pay the
remainder.
Azerbaijan and Iran share both history and mistrust. Their network of
competition draws in both the Caucasus and the Middle East.
But for those Azeris on the border Iran is more simple and more immediate.
It is a cheaper place to shop, and the only hope to save a son's life.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19063885
From: A. Papazian
Why Azerbaijan is closer to Israel than Iran[image: James Reynolds] By
James Reynolds BBC News, Baku
Life at the Iran-Azerbaijan border
First of all, you need to ask for an appointment well in advance. Security
agents call your head office to make sure you are who you say you are.
If your credentials check out, an appointment is made, and a guard escorts
you to the top floor of the building. Another guard calls you in, tests
your equipment and ask you to leave behind your mobile phone. You are taken
through further checks and invited to sit in a corridor and admire works of
art on the wall as you wait.
Then, just a few minutes behind schedule, one of the most fortified men in
the Caucasus region arrives for his interview.
Michael Lotem is Israel's Ambassador to Azerbaijan. His embassy is the
closest that Israel physically gets to its principal enemy, Iran. From the
embassy it is only a four-hour drive south to the Iranian border.
The Israeli embassy in Baku is an important, and occasionally a dangerous,
outpost. In January 2012, Azerbaijan's government said it broke up an
Iranian plot to kill the ambassador.
"I can tell you that the Iranians don't sit still for a second," says Mr
Lotem slowly, as he fiddles with his shirt sleeve. "But I'm not worried
about my security. I have full confidence in the Azeri security services."
'More Tel Aviv than Tehran'
Israel and Azerbaijan have had diplomatic relations since April 1992, six
months after the republic declared its independence from the Soviet Union.
Israel and the secular government of Azerbaijan share the same goal: to
check the spread of political Islam in general and Iran in particular.
[image: Israel's Ambassador to Azerbaijan, Michael Lotem] Israeli
Ambassador Michael Lotem says his country and Azerbaijan share the same
world view
Theirs is an alliance reinforced by hardware. In February 2012, Israel sold
Azerbaijan $1.6bn (1.3bn euros) of sophisticated weapons systems.
"We share the same view of the world, I guess," says Michael Lotem. "We
share quite a few common problems. For us Israelis to find a Muslim country
which is so open, so friendly, so progressive, is not something the
Israelis take for granted."
Earlier this year, America's Foreign Policy magazine suggested the alliance
between Israel and Azerbaijan went deeper than many had previously thought.
The magazine reported that Israel had secured an agreement to use
Azerbaijan's airfields in case it went ahead with a military strike against
Iran's nuclear facilities.
If true, this would give Israel a significant tactical advantage. But
Israel denies the claim.
"That's sheer science fiction", says the ambassador, "or maybe we should
drop the science out of it. The aim is having very solid relations with
Azerbaijan."
Azerbaijan's population is mostly Shia Muslim. But its government is
intensely secular.
A lone shop in the centre of Baku, called simply The Muslim Shop, shows how
rare the public expression of Islam is in the capital.
In the evenings, restaurants serve Turkish-made beer to customers in
Fountains Square. Most women do not wear headscarves. The centre of town
has a McDonalds, a Mothercare and a Versace shop. Baku feels more like Tel
Aviv than Tehran. The government is determined to stop its Islamic
neighbour from encroaching.
"Azerbaijan naturally rejects the Iranian Islamic influence because it is
perceived as a threat to the very nation state," says Leila Alieva, the
Director of the independent Centre for National and International Studies
in Baku.
"On the other hand, Azerbaijan has always enjoyed a very good relationship
with the Jewish community."
Strike 'disastrous'
But there are those in Azerbaijan who disagree with their government's
embrace of Israel.
Ilgar Ibrahimoglu is an Islamic cleric who campaigns for a greater role for
Islam in Azerbaijan.
He works from a small office and prayer room in Baku. Guests are invited to
take off their shoes when they enter in order to respect Islamic custom.
Mr Ibrahimglu enters the room, sits behind a desk and warns that previous
journalists have made him look stupid. So he says that he will speak in
short sentences, perhaps conscious that Azerbaijan's government will keep a
close eye on his words.
"Iran is a Muslim country and a close neighbour of Azerbaijan", he says,
"but I won't say more. Even if this was a live interview I'd say the same
thing for five hours straight."
But when the staccato conversation turns to Israel, the cleric decides to
loosen his rules and speak slightly more expansively.
"Azerbaijan shouldn't be friendly with a country that carries out state
terror against another people, the Palestinians. Israel can't beat Iran. It
couldn't win in Gaza or Lebanon, and it won't win in Iran."
The cleric's words won't make Azerbaijan switch alliances. In May 2012, two
Azerbaijani poets were detained in Iran on charges of espionage.
Azerbaijan's government has since advised its citizens not to travel to the
Islamic Republic.
Elman Abdullayev, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, deals with Iran every day.
He studied in California, and bounces from foot-to-foot as he talks.
He apologises for the renovations being made to the Ministry's Soviet era
building (the apology is prompted when we pass a man who accidentally pulls
a door off its hinges.)
"Azerbaijan has always been famous for its modernistic approach - for its
secularism." Mr Abdullayev says. "You know we have been first secular state
in the Muslim East. So we develop our relations with different countries
based on our national interest - be it Israel, be it Muslim countries."
Mr Abdullayev rejects the reports that Azerbaijan might lease its airbases
to Israel. But what would his government do if its ally, Israel, strikes
its neighbour, Iran?
"This a hypothetical question which would be difficult to answer," he says.
"We think that the Iranian issue has to be resolved diplomatically,
peacefully, politically, because anything like that [a military strike]
would be disastrous for the whole region, for all of us."
Iranian suspicions
Relations between Azerbaijan and Iran are made more difficult because they
share not just a border, but a common heritage.
The Azeri people once lived under the Persian Empire. In 1813, the Treaty
of Gulistan after the first Russo-Persian war split the ethnic Azeri people
into two.
[image: View of Baku, Azerbaijan's capital] Although Azerbaijan is
predominately Muslim, the country separates religion from state
Those in the north lived under Russian, then Soviet rule - and are now in
independent Azerbaijan. Those in the south lived under the Persian Empire -
and are now in the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Today, around nine million ethnic Azeris live in Azerbaijan. But even more
ethnic Azeris live across the border in Iran. Figures show that there are
around 10-20 million Azeris in Iran - around a fifth of the country's
population. Millions more Iranians have Azeri ancestry, including Iran's
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Among many Azeris there is a desire for reunification.
Simon Aruz is an ethnic Azeri from Iran. He worked as a writer and
political activist and campaigned for better rights for the Azeri people in
the Persian State. In 2009, he fled the country for Azerbaijan.
"We used to live under pressure in Iran," he says. "We are always thinking
about our brothers, our sisters, our family. I hope they can be free soon. "
Such words make Iran suspicious. The government of the Islamic Republic is
concerned that Azerbaijan wants to steal both land and people - a charge
denied by Azerbaijan's government. The tensions of a shared, divided
heritage are now magnified by the different ways in which each government
sees the world.
Border tension
The overnight train from Baku to the southern border town of Astara leaves
at 11pm and makes its way slowly south, along the coast of the Caspian Sea.
Some travellers fall asleep immediately. Others drink and listen to the
chorus of frogs outside.
"Ask me anything about the Iranians," says one man who says he is
travelling to Astara simply to drop off a music CD with friends. "I know
them better than they know themselves."
Early in the morning, the train arrives in Astara. My colleagues and I take
a taxi to see the Iranian border. We stop at a gap in the trees half way up
a hill.
A group of Polish tourists is already standing by the fence. They are in
Azerbaijan to watch a Europa League football match - and happily pose for
photos with Iran as their backdrop.
The Islamic republic is just on the other side of the fence. Houses with
white walls and red roofs are clearly visible across the valley. Cars in
northern Iran head towards the border crossing with Azerbaijan.
The Polish tourists head off to watch their match. After a few minutes the
security forces arrive and order my colleagues and me to accompany them to
their base.
They inspect the TV pictures we have filmed which show little more than the
fields of northern Iran and order us to delete the footage.
They explain that broadcasting the pictures would get them into trouble -
they say that they do not want to do anything to increase tension with
their Islamic neighbour. The commander, a vocal Wayne Rooney fan, finally
drops us off at a hotel in Astara.
[image: Ismail] Ismail took his sick son to Iran for a $6,000 operation
after local treatments failed
At the border crossing itself, crowds of Azeris load up their cars with
boxes of food and sweets. Day-to-day goods cost less across the border in
Iran. One woman has brought back soap, bananas, biscuits for her
grandchildren.
"We are going to Baku," says Ali Mani, a carpet merchant from Iran. "Our
friends invited us. There are some restrictions in Iran that we don't see
here. It's interesting here.
"We haven't any problem with Azerbaijan and I know Azerbaijan language,"
adds his friend in English.
Our interpreter asks them in Azeri if they would like to talk about Iran
and Israel. They say no, and also decline to have their picture taken.
Next to the border gate, a driver called Ismail stands next to his car. His
23-year-old son is slumped in the front seat, trying to hide from the sun,
barely able to move. The two are returning from a trip to hospital in
Tehran.
"My son was having treatment here in Azerbaijan but it wasn't doing
anything," Ismail says. "The doctors didn't say what his problem was.
That's why some people advised me to go to Tehran.
"We went there, they carried out a stomach operation and it was successful.
My attitude [towards Iran] is very positive. I went there with big hopes -
for my son to be cured there. It was successful. So I'm happy."
Ismail says that his son's operation cost $6,000. He has paid a first
instalment to the Iranian hospital and has promised them he will pay the
remainder.
Azerbaijan and Iran share both history and mistrust. Their network of
competition draws in both the Caucasus and the Middle East.
But for those Azeris on the border Iran is more simple and more immediate.
It is a cheaper place to shop, and the only hope to save a son's life.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-19063885
From: A. Papazian