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RUSSIA WATCH: AZERI WOLVES IN IRANIAN SHEEP'S CLOTHING?
The Sofia Globe, Bulgaria
March 15 2013
Posted Mar 15 2013 by James Brooke VOA Moscow Bureau Chief
Iran faces political population bomb: a young, growing and urbanized
population that wants food - cheap and traditional. Iran's population
has doubled in the last 40 years, hitting 75 million people today.
Half of all Iranians are under 35 years of age, and 71 percent live
in cities.
Immediately to the north, lies help: the fallow grazing lands of
Armenia.
Fewer and fewer Armenian men want to make a living as shepherds,
tending sheep on scenic, but lonely mountain slopes. Armenia's
agriculture ministry says that 70 percent of the nation's pastures
are now without livestock - about 800,000 hectares.
Here's the deal:
Iran's Ambassador Mohammad Reisi offers to rent thousands of hectares
of mountain pastures to provide grazing land for Iranian sheep. With
the grazing leases, he has estimated that Armenia could increase
its livestock fivefold. Within a decade, he says, Armenia could be
exporting 2-3 million sheep a year to Iran.
Sounds good to me.
Not too many people are lining up to invest in Armenia, a small,
landlocked nation, with poor relations with two of its four neighbors.
Closed Borders
To the east, Armenia's borders with Azerbaijan are closed.
On some stretches, soldiers of Christian Armenia and Muslim Azerbaijan
face each other across trenches, poised on hair trigger alerts. About
once a week, a military sniper on one side kills a soldier from the
other side.
To the west, Armenia's land borders are closed with Turkey, a legacy
of bitter feelings over Ottoman Turkey's campaign against ethnic
Armenians in 1915.
So the Iranian offer sounds like a win-win for Armenia.
How naïve, Hasmik Evoyan, told me one morning in Yerevan.
Evoyan, an environmentalist, walked me through the geopolitics of
sheep. She showed me why many Armenians see putting lamb dishes on
Iranian dinner tables could be lose-lose for Armenia.
The sheep would largely graze in Armenia's southernmost province,
Syunik. Long and as narrow as 30 kilometers wide in some places, Syunik
is Armenia's lifeline to Iran. But it is strategically vulnerable,
sandwiched between two territories of Azerbaijan.
Lifeline to Iran
Although Syunik is Armenia's second largest province, it is also
one of its least populated. With 15 percent of Armenia's land area,
Syunik has less than 5 percent of Armenia's people. The population
dropped in the late 1980s, after ethnic fighting forced an Azeri
minority to flee to Azerbaijan and northern Iran.
Without a large local population to draw on, the Iranian sheep project
would mean importing Iranian shepherds, and possibly their families.
Depending on the age of slaughter - for lamb or mutton - an annual
export of 2.5 million sheep could mean an Iranian flock of 5 million
sheep in southern Armenia. Given the region's steep terrain, it would
be hard for one shepherd to watch more than 500 sheep.
So, back of the envelope calculations point to as many as 10,000
Iranian shepherds.
Where would the shepherds come from?
The memorandum of understanding was signed between Syunik and the
neighboring Iranian province, a place with a name that sounds ominous
to many Armenians - Eastern Atrapatakan, or Eastern Azerbaijan. With
a population 20 times that of Syunik, Eastern Atrapatakan is keystone
of the northern Iran's Azeri minority - about 17 million people.
So, the Iranian sheep deal could come with as many 10,000 ethnic
Azeri shepherds, their families, and their watchdogs.
Then, there is another wrinkle.
Over the last 20 years, the withdrawal of Armenian shepherds from the
mountain pastures has allowed the nation's wolf population to surge.
Armenian authorities now pay a $275 bounty for each wolf shot. So,
it stands to reason that Iranian shepherds would carry rifles to
protect their flocks from wolves and other predators.
Men with Rifles
So, in a nutshell, Armenians say, the Iranian sheep deal could mean
infiltrating into a strategic area several thousand ethnic Azeri men,
all armed with rifles.
"With the sheep, a couple of thousand people may come to Armenia,
and may live in places that are strategically important for Armenia,"
said Evoyan, of the Armenia's PreParliament opposition group. "It's
not only about the employment. As I said, it's about the non-formal,
informal migration of other nationalities to Armenia that is not
strategically right choice for Armenia."
On Feb. 14, four days before Armenia's hotly contested presidential
election, Evoyan and others protested the sheep deal in front
of Armenia's National Assembly building in Yerevan. I arrived in
Armenia's capital the next day. But Gohar Abrahamyan, a reporter for
Armenia Now news website, covered the protest.
She got environmentalist Silva Adamyan to say out loud what many
Armenians are thinking quietly.
"I remember how the Azerbaijanis were quietly taking control of
Syunik during the Soviet years," Adamyan told Armenia Now. "We have
liberated it. And now, we want to give it to them again? Can't we
really understand that it is the same Azeris - citizens of Iran -
who would be coming back to Syunik, bring their families, and so the
blood shed for those lands would turn out to be for nothing?"
In Armenia's presidential election, Serzh Sargsyan, the incumbent
was re-elected. But the opposition performed strongly and has been
continuing with street protests. By all indications, the Iranian
sheep project will die a bureaucratic death, buried in the Ministry
of Agriculture.
http://sofiaglobe.com/2013/03/15/russia-watch-azeri-wolves-in-iranian-sheeps-clothing/
The Sofia Globe, Bulgaria
March 15 2013
Posted Mar 15 2013 by James Brooke VOA Moscow Bureau Chief
Iran faces political population bomb: a young, growing and urbanized
population that wants food - cheap and traditional. Iran's population
has doubled in the last 40 years, hitting 75 million people today.
Half of all Iranians are under 35 years of age, and 71 percent live
in cities.
Immediately to the north, lies help: the fallow grazing lands of
Armenia.
Fewer and fewer Armenian men want to make a living as shepherds,
tending sheep on scenic, but lonely mountain slopes. Armenia's
agriculture ministry says that 70 percent of the nation's pastures
are now without livestock - about 800,000 hectares.
Here's the deal:
Iran's Ambassador Mohammad Reisi offers to rent thousands of hectares
of mountain pastures to provide grazing land for Iranian sheep. With
the grazing leases, he has estimated that Armenia could increase
its livestock fivefold. Within a decade, he says, Armenia could be
exporting 2-3 million sheep a year to Iran.
Sounds good to me.
Not too many people are lining up to invest in Armenia, a small,
landlocked nation, with poor relations with two of its four neighbors.
Closed Borders
To the east, Armenia's borders with Azerbaijan are closed.
On some stretches, soldiers of Christian Armenia and Muslim Azerbaijan
face each other across trenches, poised on hair trigger alerts. About
once a week, a military sniper on one side kills a soldier from the
other side.
To the west, Armenia's land borders are closed with Turkey, a legacy
of bitter feelings over Ottoman Turkey's campaign against ethnic
Armenians in 1915.
So the Iranian offer sounds like a win-win for Armenia.
How naïve, Hasmik Evoyan, told me one morning in Yerevan.
Evoyan, an environmentalist, walked me through the geopolitics of
sheep. She showed me why many Armenians see putting lamb dishes on
Iranian dinner tables could be lose-lose for Armenia.
The sheep would largely graze in Armenia's southernmost province,
Syunik. Long and as narrow as 30 kilometers wide in some places, Syunik
is Armenia's lifeline to Iran. But it is strategically vulnerable,
sandwiched between two territories of Azerbaijan.
Lifeline to Iran
Although Syunik is Armenia's second largest province, it is also
one of its least populated. With 15 percent of Armenia's land area,
Syunik has less than 5 percent of Armenia's people. The population
dropped in the late 1980s, after ethnic fighting forced an Azeri
minority to flee to Azerbaijan and northern Iran.
Without a large local population to draw on, the Iranian sheep project
would mean importing Iranian shepherds, and possibly their families.
Depending on the age of slaughter - for lamb or mutton - an annual
export of 2.5 million sheep could mean an Iranian flock of 5 million
sheep in southern Armenia. Given the region's steep terrain, it would
be hard for one shepherd to watch more than 500 sheep.
So, back of the envelope calculations point to as many as 10,000
Iranian shepherds.
Where would the shepherds come from?
The memorandum of understanding was signed between Syunik and the
neighboring Iranian province, a place with a name that sounds ominous
to many Armenians - Eastern Atrapatakan, or Eastern Azerbaijan. With
a population 20 times that of Syunik, Eastern Atrapatakan is keystone
of the northern Iran's Azeri minority - about 17 million people.
So, the Iranian sheep deal could come with as many 10,000 ethnic
Azeri shepherds, their families, and their watchdogs.
Then, there is another wrinkle.
Over the last 20 years, the withdrawal of Armenian shepherds from the
mountain pastures has allowed the nation's wolf population to surge.
Armenian authorities now pay a $275 bounty for each wolf shot. So,
it stands to reason that Iranian shepherds would carry rifles to
protect their flocks from wolves and other predators.
Men with Rifles
So, in a nutshell, Armenians say, the Iranian sheep deal could mean
infiltrating into a strategic area several thousand ethnic Azeri men,
all armed with rifles.
"With the sheep, a couple of thousand people may come to Armenia,
and may live in places that are strategically important for Armenia,"
said Evoyan, of the Armenia's PreParliament opposition group. "It's
not only about the employment. As I said, it's about the non-formal,
informal migration of other nationalities to Armenia that is not
strategically right choice for Armenia."
On Feb. 14, four days before Armenia's hotly contested presidential
election, Evoyan and others protested the sheep deal in front
of Armenia's National Assembly building in Yerevan. I arrived in
Armenia's capital the next day. But Gohar Abrahamyan, a reporter for
Armenia Now news website, covered the protest.
She got environmentalist Silva Adamyan to say out loud what many
Armenians are thinking quietly.
"I remember how the Azerbaijanis were quietly taking control of
Syunik during the Soviet years," Adamyan told Armenia Now. "We have
liberated it. And now, we want to give it to them again? Can't we
really understand that it is the same Azeris - citizens of Iran -
who would be coming back to Syunik, bring their families, and so the
blood shed for those lands would turn out to be for nothing?"
In Armenia's presidential election, Serzh Sargsyan, the incumbent
was re-elected. But the opposition performed strongly and has been
continuing with street protests. By all indications, the Iranian
sheep project will die a bureaucratic death, buried in the Ministry
of Agriculture.
http://sofiaglobe.com/2013/03/15/russia-watch-azeri-wolves-in-iranian-sheeps-clothing/