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Russia And Iran - Uneasy Neighbors

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  • Russia And Iran - Uneasy Neighbors

    RUSSIA AND IRAN - UNEASY NEIGHBORS
    by James Brooke

    Tne Moscow News
    http://themoscownews.com/russiawatch/20120123/189392896.html
    Jan 24 2012
    Russia

    Countries without natural borders are like amoebas. Over centuries,
    they expand and contract, expand and contract.

    As the Western world wonders why Russia has such a nuanced policy
    toward Iran's nuclear program, it is important to skip back over four
    centuries of history.

    Under Ivan the Terrible, Russia defeated the Tatars and started to
    expand east to Siberia and south to the Caspian Sea. There, it first
    encountered Persia, forerunner to modern Iran. For the next century,
    wary coexistence ensued between the two empires.

    In 1722, Russia expanded south again, embarking on the first of four
    successful wars against Persia. Steadily, Russia gobbled up chunks of
    Persia's Central Asian Empire. With the 1828 Treaty of Turkemnchay,
    the Caspian Sea became a Russian lake.

    One author of that treaty was Russia's new ambassador to Persia,
    Alexander Griboyedov, a witty and charming poet and playwright.

    © RIA Novosti. / Valeriy Shustov

    Alexander Griboyedov's statue in MoscowBut Persian resentment of the
    treaty boiled over when an Armenian eunuch escaped from the Shah's
    harem and two Armenian girls escaped from the harem of his son-in-law.

    Under terms of the new treaty, Armenians were allowed safe passage
    from Persia to Russiancontrolled Armenia. Ambassador Griboyedov stood
    on principle, and protected his Armenian charges.

    A mob of rioting Persians overwhelmed the Russian Embassy's Cossack
    guards and slaughtered everyone inside. When Griboyedov's 16-year-old
    bride, Nino, learned of her husband's fate, she became so distraught
    that she miscarried, and lost their baby. For the rest of her life,
    she refused all suitors. Today, a larger than life Griboyedov statue
    in Moscow is a popular meeting point for young people. In St.

    Petersburg, Griboyedov Canal is a picturesque waterway in the heart
    of the city.

    The embassy slaughter may live on in Russian's popular image of Iran.

    But it did not deter the Kremlin, which retained control of Northern
    Iran through 1946.

    In 1907, with the military rise of Germany, Russia and Britain signed
    the Anglo-Russian Convention. Under this treaty, Persia was divided up
    between a northern Russian zone, a central neutral zone governed by a
    Shah, and a southern British zone. This allowed Britain to develop oil
    deposits in southern Iran and to build a refinery in Abadan. Founded
    in 1909, the Anglo-Persian Oil Company grew into what is known today
    as BP.

    In 1941, Britain and the Soviet Union conducted a joint, threeweek
    military campaign and deposed the pro-German Shah, installing his
    son, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. For the next five years, the two foreign
    nations oversaw what had now come to be called Iran.

    In early 1946, the British pulled out, but the Red Army stayed in
    Northern Iran well beyond an exit deadline stipulated in the Teheran
    Conference of 1943. Stalin decided to extend control over northern Iran
    by setting up two puppet Soviet republics and signing an oil treaty
    with Teheran that gave the Soviet Union ownership of 51 percent of
    northern Iran's oil deposits. But soon after Red Army troops withdrew
    from northern Iran, the puppet republics collapsed. In late 1947,
    Iran's parliament refused to ratify the oil agreement.

    Six decades of oil earnings and a swelling young population have
    given Iran a powerful military machine. Now, it may be building a
    nuclear bomb.

    By contrast, in the Caspian, post-Soviet Moscow's control has receded
    to about 20 percent of the 7,000 km shoreline. And half of the
    Russia portion is Dagestan, where currently the hottest insurgency
    is underway in Russia's Islamic south. Moscow fears Iran reaching
    across the Caspian to destabilize southern Russia.

    Last year's Arab Spring ended a series of Soviet legacy relationships.

    Russian influence in the Mediterranean receded to a toehold in
    Tarsus, a naval base on Syria's coast - but a large question mark
    hangs over the future of Syria. And the Russian public has little
    taste in overseas military entanglement, whether Syria or Iran.

    The Kremlin keeps its ear close to the ground through an extensive
    public opinion polling system. Today, as the Russian amoeba retracts,
    there is no indication that the nation's leaders want to tangle
    with Teheran.

    James Brooke (Twitter: @VOA_Moscow) is the Moscow bureau chief for
    Voice of America. To view all "Russia Watch" posts, go to voanews.com.

    The views expressed in this article are the author's own.


    From: Baghdasarian
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