Iranian-Armenian relations

[Mos]

Re: Iranian-Armenian relations

Recent meeting...

Armenia, Iran Call for Stronger Ties


Foreign Minister Nalbandian meets with Iran's President Ahmadinejad
TEHRAN (IRNA)—Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Armenia’s Foreign Minister Eduard Nalbandian, who was visiting Iran, said Saturday that Armenia and Iran should strengthen ties.
During a meeting with Nalbandian, Ahmadinejad pointed to the available potentials for the enhancement of Iran-Armenia ties and said, “Trade with neighbors is always the best [form of] trade, which is beneficial both for the establishment and promotion of security, peace and friendship and to regional countries.”
Ahmadinejad also said that Tehran-Yerevan ties could be enhanced promptly as Iran considers no limits on its relations with Armenia.
Earlier in the day, Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi also met with his Armenian counterpart in Tehran.
Salehi described Iran’s ties with Armenia as “strategic,” stressing the need to continue negotiations on the expansion of bilateral relations.
He congratulated his counterpart on the 20th anniversary of the Armenia’s independence and described having good relations with neighbors as one of Tehran’s foreign policy priorities.
Salehi urged the continuation of negotiations with Armenia over mutual issues and regional developments and expressed Iran’s readiness to cooperate with the Armenian government in the transportation and energy sectors as well as in the fields of politics and culture.
Nalbandian, for his part, voiced satisfaction with Tehran-Yerevan relations and formally invited the Iranian foreign minister to visit Armenia.
The Armenian foreign minister also stressed the role of Iran in establishing stability and security in Central Asia and discussed the latest developments in the Caucasus, including the negotiations between Armenia and Azerbaijan on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Iran and Armenia have taken major strides toward promoting mutual relations in the past few years.
The bilateral trade volume between the two states stands at nearly $270 million, according to the Armenian foreign minister.
The ministers also discussed the work of the Armenian -Iranian intergovernmental commission which has an important role in elaborating and implementing of economic cooperation and joint projects.

[arakeretzig]

Re: Iranian-Armenian relations

Iran's covert war with Israel in Caspian

damn juice. They are always ruining it for everybody

[Eddo211]

Re: Iranian-Armenian relations

^^^good find ninetoyadome.

I have heard that from Iranian officials before not to trust unofficial sources.....Still bothers me why Tehran time and Mehr would publish such thing, and these are not small news agencies I would say.

[ninetoyadome]

Re: Iranian-Armenian relations

Iranian MFA: “There are no Kurdish groups in Armenia”
BY TIMES.AM AT 22 AUGUST, 2011, 12:34 PM

Information about Kurdish armed forces which as if hold trainings in Armenia is fake. Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has officially denied information about trainings which as if are held by “Pejak” group, Panorama.am informs.

Head of Iranian MFA has announced on August 21 that no non-official source should be trusted. Remind that Iranian source informed that Kurdish armed group held trainings in Armenia.

Armenian experts consider it had a propaganda aim and it was difficult to believe that it was Iranian official attitude.

/Times.am/

http://times.am/2011/08/22/iranian-mfa-%E2%80%9Cwhere-are-no-kurdish-groups-in-armenia%E2%80%9D/

[Eddo211]

Re: Iranian-Armenian relations


Iran's covert war with Israel in Caspian

by Staff Writers
Baku, Azerbaijan (UPI) Aug 17, 2011


A senior Iranian general has warned zerbaijan about getting too close to Israel, underlining fears in Tehran that the xxxish state could use Iran's northern neighbor to launch pre-emptive strikes against Iran's nuclear program.

Israel has been quietly building intelligence and military links with oil rich Azerbaijan, a largely secular Muslim state, since the collapse of the Soviet Union two decades ago.

The Israelis sell significant amounts of weapons and unmanned aerial vehicles to the government in Baku, on the Caspian Sea, as its intelligence services dig in along the border with Iran.

That gives Israel a forward operating base to monitor Iran, particularly its contentious nuclear program, which Jerusalem views as a major existential threat.

Over the last two years, tensions have escalated as Azerbaijan has become part of the shadowy intelligence war between Iran and Israel. It has become even more important to Israel since its May 2010 rift with former ally Turkey, which also borders Iran.

Even so, the unusually aggressive outburst by Gen. Hassan Firouzabadi, chief of Iran's armed forces Joint Staff Command, Aug. 9 struck a particularly jarring note and brought into sharp focus a little-known aspect of Israel's deepening intelligence war with Iran.

It also reflected Tehran's growing alarm at Israel's penetration of Iran's northern neighbor.

In what was perceived as thinly veiled threat, Firouzabadi accused Baku of mistreating religious Shiites in southern Azerbaijan who lean toward the Islamic Republic and allowing "Zionists" access to Azerbaijani territory right on Iran's doorstep.

"If this policy continues, it will end in darkness and it will not be possible to suppress a revolt by the people of Aran," or Azerbaijan, the general declared in an interview with Iran's semi-official Mehr news agency.

Relations between Iran and Azerbaijan have been under strain in recent years, largely through Iranian covert operations.

In 2007, Azerbaijan convicted 15 Iranians and Azeris for spying on Israeli, U.S. and British interests, including oil facilities, for Tehran and plotting to seize power.

In 2008, Azeri authorities, aided by Israel's Mossad spy agency, thwarted a plot involving operatives of Hezbollah, Iran's powerful Lebanese proxy, to blow up the Israeli Embassy in Baku.

That plot was intended to avenge the assassination of Hezbollah's iconic security chief, Imad Mughniyeh, in Damascus earlier that year. Tehran blamed Mossad for that killing.

Firouzabadi's statement jolted the Iranian leadership as much as it did the Azeri government. Senior Iranian figures publicly chastised the general and sought to distance Tehran from his remarks.

"It is important to note that the ongoing power struggle in Iran" between President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the clerical establishment led by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, "has been having the unintended effect of creating more political space for the military leadership to assert its views," the U.S. global security consultancy Stratfor observed.

It said "the tense exchange between Tehran and Baku Â… underscores the growing conflict of interests between the two neighbors as Azerbaijan works on strengthening its relationship with the West."

Around 85 percent of the population of Azerbaijan, ringed by key regional players Iran, Turkey and Russia, is Shiite. That gives Tehran the opportunity to make sectarian mischief in the Caucasus and the energy-rich Caspian Basin.

However, Azerbaijan is overwhelmingly secular, except for the religious conservatives on its southern flank. The government of President Ilham Aliyev suspects Tehran is them to bolster its claims to Azerbaijan's Caspian energy reserves.

Iran fears Aliyev, backed by Israel and even the United States, could support a revolt by its Azeris, who comprise about one-quarter of the population.

So it supports Azerbaijan's regional rival, Armenia, in its deadlocked dispute with Baku over Nagorno-Karabakh, currently held by Armenia.

"Given that Azerbaijan's relations with Iran have long been fraught, the Azerbaijani government has not had any qualms in developing a strategic relationship with Israel," Stratfor noted.

Expanding that military and intelligence relationship to upgrade Azerbaijan's capabilities and develop a military industrial complex there is one of Tehran's greatest concerns.

Aliyev is looking toward Israel and NATO to help modernize its forces, despite a U.S. arms embargo in place since 1992.

Israel is Azerbaijan's fourth largest trading partner. The xxxish state has also been making inroads into the former Soviet republics of Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan. It's negotiating with Kazakhstan to upgrade its military.

http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Irans_covert_war_with_Israel_in_Caspian_999.html

[Eddo211]

Re: Iranian-Armenian relations

The latest Iranian offensive on PJAK in Iraqi Kurdistan has them fleeing across all borders for their lives, including into Armenia as it appears. Mos the wording of the title in the article you posted from Tehran is screwed up, it come out sounding like Armenia is training PJAKs which is not true. Azeri Media is already having a field day with this. If anything it was Armenia or Artsakh gov that tipped the Iranians.

Anyway it appears what Iran has just done to PJAK in last few months what Turkey hasn't been able to accomplish in 30 years even with their bombing campagns.

------------------------------------

ARM Defense Minister Received the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Iran to Armenia.



2011-08-19
On August 19, ARM Defense Minister Seyran Ohanyan received the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the Republic of Armenia Seyed Ali Saghaeyan.

During the meeting the Ambassador presented the new appointed Iranian military attaché to Armenia colonel Hamidreza Mirza. Congratulating for the new appointment Seyran Ohanyan expressed hope that it will be a new impulse for the further development of Armenian-Iranian bilateral cooperation in the defense sector. At the same time ARM Defense Minister thanked the predecessor of the current military attaché Ahmad Reza Allahdadi for the contribution on his part during his tenure.

During the meeting the parties have also talked about issues concerning the regional security.

http://www.mil.am/1313770131

[Mos]

Re: Iranian-Armenian relations

.....

PJAK terrorist group receiving training in Armenia’
Political Desk

On Line: 17 August 2011 14:29
In Print: Thursday 18 August 2011

TEHRAN - Members of the counter-revolutionary group PJAK (the Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan) are receiving training in parts of Armenia, Iranian Army Colonel Aziz Hassan-Aqdam said on Wednesday.

“The terrorist group PJAK, after suffering a heavy defeat in the south of West Azerbaijan (Province), went to the northern part of the province,” Hassan-Aqdam stated.

Some members of the terrorist group have fled to Bouralan, in the north of the province, and they are also receiving training in some parts of Armenia, he noted.

However, security has been restored in the north of the province and the border guards of Maku are ready to repel any attack, he added.

Troops from 32 border posts guarding Maku region

Hassan-Aqdam also said that troops stationed at 32 border posts are protecting the border in the Maku region and cameras have also been installed to monitor areas where there are no guards.

Fifty vehicles, 80,850 liters of diesel fuel, 32,495 packets of foreign cigarettes, 197 satellite receivers, 17 guns, 8.285 kilos of illicit drugs, 73 antiques, and 177 pornographic CDs have been seized by the Maku border police over the past few months.

In addition, 289 smugglers were arrested and 196,500 U.S. dollars, 118,000 euros, and 198 million Turkish liras were seized from the smugglers.

[Mos]

Re: Iranian-Armenian relations

He has also made some statements favoring the U.S and Israel. A part of why Iran has good relations with Armenia is because Azerbaijan and Turkey are so friendly with the USA and Israel, where as Armenia is closer to Russia. Therefore it's not necessarily a good thing for us if Iran became less religious and more progressive. Also, one of the reasons they have tense relations with Azerbaijan is Azerbaijan's secular government policies. That's why I don't know if it would be that great if he became a rule. Regardless though, i don't think Iran's religious leadership would allow someone like him become president.

He is part of the conservative section of Iranian politicians (e.g. Ahmadinejad) that want to bring in more Iranian nationalism, along side the religious elements. They are not pro-Israel/US, maybe in the other wing there may be. What there needs to be is a steady balance between the religious elements and nationalistic. To much of either can hurt us.

[Mher]

Re: Iranian-Armenian relations

One of the things I am hoping is that the political elements advocating Iranian nationalism over religious ideals advocated by the more conservatives and people around Ayatollah, take power in Iran. In my view, such a political change would be very good for our relations. I am not saying for there to be secular government, but for those particular elements to take power. One of the key people of that is Esfandiar Mashaei, who is also close with Ahmadinejad and has been speculated to maybe be the future president.

He has also made some statements favoring the U.S and Israel. A part of why Iran has good relations with Armenia is because Azerbaijan and Turkey are so friendly with the USA and Israel, where as Armenia is closer to Russia. Therefore it's not necessarily a good thing for us if Iran became less religious and more progressive. Also, one of the reasons they have tense relations with Azerbaijan is Azerbaijan's secular government policies. That's why I don't know if it would be that great if he became a rule. Regardless though, i don't think Iran's religious leadership would allow someone like him become president.

[Armanen]

Re: Iranian-Armenian relations

It is a Shia mosque that mainly caters to the Iranians who visit Armenia, the diplomats from the Iranian embassy, and some random Muslims who may need a place to pray should they find themselves in Yerevan. It is the only functioning mosque in Armenia though.