Hazar Raporu - Issue 02 - Winter 2012

allow a proper inspection of its nuclear
facilities by the International Atomic
Energy Agency, but so far without success.
Apart from the seabed issue, relations
between Iran and Azerbaijan have been
seriously damaged by Azerbaijan’s military
links with Israel, which resulted in a $1.6
billion arms deal for the supply of Israeli
drones and missile defence systems
announced in February 2012. Although
both sides deny this, the entente with
Israel is also said to include permission
for the Israeli air force to use an air base
in Azerbaijan, presumably in support of
an attack on Iran. 18 In April 2012 tensions
were increased when Azerbaijan carried
out naval exercises in the Caspian, which
were assumed to be directed against Iran. 19
These and the many other inter-state
conflicts and rivalries within the region
appeared to make it unlikely that ECO
could ever get beyond the talking-shop
stage without some basic reconstruction or
redirection.
Clearly, overcoming these obstacles will
be hard, and could be impossible. Apart
from the political disputes, plans for a
change in the economic development
strategies of all the ECO members, and
18 Mark Perry, ‘Israel’s Secret Staging Ground’, Foreign
Policy, 28 March 2012. For background on the development of
links between Israel and Azerbaijan, see Alexander Murinson,
Turkey’s Entente with Israel and Azerbaijan: State Identity and
Security in the Middle East and Caucasus (London and New
York, Routledge, 2010) esp. pp.57-61, 123-33. Israel’s development
of its military links with Azerbaijan also prompts the
speculation that this has acted as a barrier to the formation of an
alliance between the Armenian and pro-Israel lobbies in the US
Congress – to Turkey’s advantage.
19 Anar Valiev, ‘Azerbaijan’s Military Exercises in the Caspian:
Who Is the Target’ Eurasia Daily Monitor, Vol.9, No 94, 17
May 2012.
achieving better economic cooperation,
hold little prospect of success given the
huge economic disparities between, say
Afghanistan and Tajikistan, at one end of
the scale, and Turkey at the other. So long
as Iran, the lone wolf in regional politics,
pursues ideological and strategic goals
at odds with those of its neighbours, the
emergence of ECO as an effective regional
bloc within the Caspian region seems
highly improbable.
This is not to suggest that the other
members should declare ECO dead and
buried. If they did so, Iran would almost
certainly see this as another attempt to
exclude it from the international arena,
and could react in ways which could cause
further problems for the other members –
by, for instance, giving full-scale support to
terrorist attacks by the PKK in Turkey. On
these grounds, the other members would
probably prefer to keep Iran inside their
garden, rather than roaming around in the
forest outside. On the other hand, it could
be argued that ECO might take a leaf out
of the EU’s book, by developing free trade
or other cooperative arrangements purely
among those members that are willing and
able to go forward with this project, and do
not have serious political differences. This
would allow others to opt out, without
excluding them from the organisation
altogether, and would be more effective
than trying to adhere to a ‘one size fits all’
model which has little chance of success.
‘Flexible geometry’ might thus be the best
way forward.
CASPIAN REPORT
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