Tensions are running high between Russia and Azerbaijan, while neighboring Armenia is in political turmoil. Both countries border with Iran, as well as with Türkiye and Georgia. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has demanded an investigation of whether Israeli drone and/or missile attacks on Iran came through Azerbaijani airspace. NATO members Türkiye and France are also involved, in different ways.
Until recently, Azerbaijan-Russian relations had been on the upswing, as rail links for the International North South Transportation Corridor are to run from Russia across Azerbaijan to Iran, and in 2020 Russia mediated a settlement of the bloody war between Azerbaijan and Armenia over Nagorno Karabakh Province. Under that accord, Russian forces were to police the proposed Zangezur Corridor across Armenia’s Syunik Province, which would connect Azerbaijan to its detached Nakhichevan Province, and is also exactly where Armenia borders with Iran. But Azerbaijan has lately been pushing for control over the Zangezur Corridor to be taken over by the Azeri-friendly Turks rather than the Russians. Azerbaijan plays a major role in Turkish President Erdogan’s desire to create a greater Turkic-speaking region. Armenian former MP Haik Babookhanian of the Constitutional Rights Party said in a June 29 interview on Iravunk.com, that Armenian Prime Minister Pashinyan has become a tool of Ankara, Baku, and unnamed “globalists.” He warned that Türkiye’s takeover of the Zanzegur Corridor would create a route for unhindered penetration of Türkiye into Central Asia, and give the NATO military access “not only to Central Asia, but also into the Turkic-language regions of Russia itself.”
A pretext for the present outburst of recriminations between Baku and Moscow appeared with a crackdown by Russian law enforcement in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg against what the Russians are calling an Azeri criminal gang, responsible for murders in 2001-2011. Two Azerbaijani-Russian men died while being arrested. This led to reprisals by Baku against Russians, with the arrest of two Sputnik-Azerbaijan journalists and several young Russians (apparently charged with drug-running from Iran), who appeared in videos being frog-marched, bloodied and bruised. In the past two days the countries have exchanged diplomatic protests. Russia has detained and then released several leaders of the large Azerbaijani diaspora.
Spokesmen for the Russian Foreign Ministry and the Kremlin have both said that “outside forces” are trying to fan the Russia-Azerbaijan tension. On July 1 acting president Zelenskyy of Ukraine announced that he had spoken by phone with Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev, to whom he expressed support at a moment when Azerbaijan “is threatened by Russia.” In Moscow’s Foreign Ministry briefing today, spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called on Azerbaijan to return to its traditional strategic relationship with Russia.
Regarding Armenia, where there have been large anti-government demonstrations in defense of the Armenian Apostolic Church, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov set forth Russia’s position at his press conference June 30 in Kyrgyzstan, where he attended a ministerial meeting of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). Acknowledging that Armenian church-state relations are an internal affair, Lavrov said Russia was “troubled by the attacks on the Armenian Apostolic Church—a canonical institution with a thousand-year history” and a “cornerstone of Armenian society.” Russia “hopes the current tensions will be resolved promptly, in full accordance with Armenia’s Constitution and with respect for the rights of believers and fundamental human rights,” Lavrov said.
Pashinyan has been heavily courted by the EU, especially French President Emmanuel Macron, to distance Armenia from Moscow, and by Türkiye and Azerbaijan for their own geopolitical purposes. Last year, Pashinyan suspended Armenia’s participation in the CSTO. Armenian Foreign Minister Mirzoyan announced June 30 that Armenia and the EU have officially started discussing cooperation on defense. On June 20, Pashinyan made an unprecedented visit to Ankara to meet with Erdogan (Aliyev of Azerbaijan had been there the previous day), a step that raised a red flag for many Armenians because of the 1916 genocide of Armenians at the hands of the British Empire’s catspaw, the Young Turks. Bishops of the Church, which had opposed yielding Nagorno Karabakh and vehemently opposes Pashinyan’s rapprochement with Türkiye, began to be arrested on charges of plotting his overthrow; hence the protest demonstrations in the Church’s defense. On June 29 Macron held a phone call with Pashinyan, to express—in his words—solidarity in the face of attempts to “destabilize democracy” in Armenia. He praised Pashinyan’s “bold efforts to make peace with Azerbaijan and normalize relations with Türkiye.”
