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Iranian Azeris: A Giant Minority

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  • Iranian Azeris: A Giant Minority

    IRANIAN AZERIS: A GIANT MINORITY
    By Ali M. Koknar

    Washington Institute for Near East Policy, DC
    June 6 2006

    Recently in Iran, tens of thousands of Iranian Azeris took to the
    streets for several days of demonstrations touched off by the May 12
    publication of a racist cartoon in the state-run Iran newspaper. (The
    cartoon depicted an Azeri-speaking cockroach.) Iranian security forces
    cracked down violently on the demonstrators, killing at least four
    people (Azeri nationalists claim twenty dead), injuring forty-three,
    and detaining hundreds of others. These developments indicate brewing
    discontent among Iran's Azeri population and should be studied for
    their implications for U.S. and Western policy toward Tehran.

    Deeper Issues at Play

    The Iranian regime's effort to put out this ethnic brushfire by closing
    the Tehran-based Iran newspaper and arresting its editor as well as
    the ethnic Azeri cartoonist quickly escalated to the usual strongarm
    response as the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps' anti-riot units
    and Basij militias attacked the Azeri protesters.

    Iranian security forces cracked down on tens thousands of offended
    Azeris, who took to the streets in Tehran and in the major northwestern
    Iranian cities such as Tabriz, Urumieh, Ardebil, Maragheh, and
    Zenjan. The intelligence service launched a massive detention campaign,
    rounding up relatives of Azeri Turks previously jailed for Turkish
    nationalism.

    The Iranian deputy interior minister for security affairs, Ali Asghar
    Ahmadi, admitted that the demonstrations in Tabriz were far more
    than a mere protest against a newspaper insult. In fact, there is
    much resentment in Iranian Azerbaijan about the region's economic
    and social difficulties. That resentment is fed by the attitudes of
    ethnic Persians toward ethnic Azeris-an attitude well captured in the
    phrase "Torki khar" (Turkish donkey), used by Persians in reference
    to Azeris, whom they regard as the "muscle" of the Iranian economy
    to be dominated by Persian "brains".

    Azeri Turks, concentrated mainly in the oil-poor northwest of Iran
    (along the border with Turkey, Armenia, and Azerbaijan), make up
    an estimated one-fourth of Iran's population of 70 million. Azeris
    often claim a population share close to 40 percent, a number that
    includes ethnic brethren such as the Turkmen, Qashgais, and other
    Turkic-speaking groups. Unlike other ethnic groups in Iran such as
    Sunni Kurds and Arabs, the Azeri Turks are Shiites like the Persians.

    Divided from their kin in Azerbaijan by the 1828 Treaty of Turkmanchai,
    which gave northern Azerbaijan to Russia (that part of Azerbaijan
    gained independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991)
    and southern Azerbaijan to Iran, the Azeris' role in the Persian
    government was significantly weakened when the Pahlavi dynasty came
    into power in 1925. Contact between the Azeri areas of Iran and the
    Soviet Union were limited until Soviet forces occupied northern Iran
    during World War II. In 1945, at Soviet instigation, an Azerbaijan
    Democratic Republic was proclaimed in Iranian Azerbaijan.

    It lasted only until Soviet forces withdrew a year later; in the
    aftermath, some thousands of Iranian Azeris were killed.

    Much as did imperial Iran, the Islamic regime has downplayed the
    ethnic differences between Persians and Azeris. Despite the fact that
    influential figures in the establishment, such as Supreme Leader
    Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, are of Azeri descent, the mullahs did not
    hesitate to crack down hard on Azeri Turkish nationalism, using heavy
    weapons to put down a 1981 uprising in Tabriz and summarily executing
    hundreds of Azeris.

    Azeris have had mixed relationships with other Iranian minorities.

    Kurds, who make up around 14 percent of Iran's population, do not have
    particularly good relations with ethnic Azeris; several cities in
    western Iran, such as Urumieh and Mako, are inhabited by both Kurds
    and by Azeri Turks. In the last decade, the ethnic majority of the
    Azeri Turks in some areas close to the border with Turkey has been
    diluted by immigration of Kurds. The attitudes of the Turkic-speaking
    ethnic Turkmens, who live in the part of Iran near the independent
    republic of Turkmenistan, are unclear.

    Growing Azeri Nationalism

    The last fifteen years has seen a boom in nationalist publications
    for Iranian Azeris and growing interest in both Turkey and the former
    Soviet republic of Azerbaijan. A considerable number of Iranian Azeris
    watch Turkish television broadcasts now available via satellite;
    this has increased their knowledge of Turkey as well as the Anatolian
    dialect of Turkish.

    This revival led to the creation of a new organization, the South
    Azerbaijan National Awakening Movement (Gamoh), by literature professor
    Mahmudali Chohraganli. After winning election to the Iranian parliament
    in 1995, Chohraganli, whose own father was once tortured by the Shah's
    secret police for Turkish nationalism, was not allowed to take his
    seat. Gamoh opposes what it calls "Persian chauvinism," demanding
    more cultural rights for Azeris, and a future Iranian government with
    a federal structure resembling the United States in which Azeris can
    have their own flag and parliament.

    Gamoh's proclaimed support for self-determination, secular government
    and a pro-Western orientation does not sit well with Tehran. Its
    apparent popularity has put Gamoh squarely on Tehran's radar screen.

    Gamoh is run as a secret organization inside Iran. Its members,
    including Chohraganli, who was jailed for two years and released
    in 1999 after falling seriously ill, are often jailed or harassed
    by Iranian security forces. Denied visas by both the Turkish and
    Azerbaijani governments, Chohraganli was allowed to travel to the
    United States in 2002. In April 2005, bodies of two Gamoh members
    were found floating in the Aras River, the boundary between Iran and
    Azerbaijan. In September 2005, the Iranian government blamed Gamoh
    for the shooting of a government official in Urumieh; Gamoh denied
    involvement. In March 2006, several Gamoh members attended the Second
    World Azerbaijanis Congress in Baku. Following that congress, several
    Gamoh members were arrested in Tabriz, and in April the Iranian Azeri
    newspaper Navid Azerbaijan was banned.

    The plight of Iranian Azeris is followed closely by their kin in
    Azerbaijan and Turkey. But both the Azerbaijani and Turkish governments
    take care not to damage their sensitive relations with the Iranian
    government. Turkey recently stopped allowing a Chicago-based Azeri
    television broadcaster, Gunaz, from using its satellite link. Gunaz
    is known for its virulent opposition to Iran's Islamic regime and its
    separatist attitude since it went on the air in 2005. On the other
    hand, Ankara has given Chohraganli permission to visit Turkey soon,
    and Gamoh has an open presence there.

    Azerbaijan is also walking a fine line between sympathy for the Iranian
    Azeris and its economic and political interests with the Islamic
    regime. Tehran recently consented to the opening of an Azerbaijani
    consulate general in Tabriz, Iran's largest Azeri-majority city. With
    annual bilateral trade volume of $600 million, Iran is a major
    trading partner of and an investor in Azerbaijan; Tehran also offers
    humanitarian aid to the almost one million Azerbaijanis internally
    displaced from Nagorno-Karabakh after Armenia occupied that part of
    Azerbaijan in 1993. Yet the Azerbaijani public is largely sympathetic
    to the plight of Iranian Azeris. "Baku, Tabriz, Ankara. Where are
    the Persians? Here we are!" chanted the Azeri Turks in Baku this
    week as they protested the brutal treatment of their ethnic kin by
    Iranian security forces. Many Azeri nationalists are interested in
    uniting "North" Azerbaijan (the former Soviet republic) with "South"
    Azerbaijan (the Iranian provinces).

    Ethnic tensions in Iran have been on the rise with unpredictable
    results, involving not just Azeris but also Kurds, Arabs, and
    Baluchs. The government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has only
    made these problems worse.

    Ali M. Koknar is the owner of AMK Risk Management, a private security
    consultancy with offices in Washington, DC, and Turkey specializing
    in counterterrorism and international organized crime.

    http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templat eC05.php?CID=2476
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