VIDEO: Pari San - Du bist die Ruh. From the album Thalamus. Visuals from Sergei Parajanov's The Color of Pomegranates

 
From the album Thalamus.
Visuals from Sergei Parajanov's The Color of Pomegranates (1968).
Edited by Pari San.
www.facebook.com/PariSanPariSan

(tff-rudolstadt.de-2014) Bereits 2011 war der Freiburger Beatboxer Paul Brenning als Hälfte des Duos Papaul bei der creole Südwest erfolgreich. Im selben Jahr begann er eine Zusammenarbeit mit der aus dem Iran stammenden Sängerin Parissa Eskandari. Bei ihren Auftritten wird geloopt und mit Stimmeffekten sowie Projektionen gearbeitet. Ziel ist ein „Klangkosmos, der die Genregrenzen zwischen Pop, HipHop, Folklore, Indie oder Electronica ignoriert und mit viel Pop-Appeal seinen eigenen Sog entwickelt.“ Die creole-Jury befand: „Diese Freiburger Band steht für gelebte kulturelle Vielfalt in einem spannenden dialogischen Elektro-Projekt. Dem außergewöhnlichen Duo gelingt es eine globale Musik abseits ausgetretener Pfade zu machen, persischen Gesang und elektronische Breakbeats in spannenden Schichtungen voller Kreativitiät und Originalität einzusetzen.“

Parissa Eskandari, Gesang, Synthesizer, Keyboards
Paul Brenning, Beatbox, Gesang, Synthesizer
Paul Brenning - paul@brenning.de


 
Interview: Das Duo Pari San (badische-zeitung.de)

RUSSLAND: Gazprom: doppelter Gaspreis für Georgien während des Vilnius-Gipfels (gas-infos.com)

(gas-infos.com) Das Geschäftsgebaren des russischen Konzerns Gazprom war schon immer von Selbstbewusstsein geprägt. Wird dem geforderten Gaspreis nicht zugestimmt oder Kritik an Forderungen geäußert, droht man, den Hahn zu schließen, oder packt die ganz große Preiskeule aus. Das bekommt im Moment vor allem Georgien zu spüren. Das Land zählt künftig über 100 Prozent mehr für die Gaslieferungen aus Russland. Die Regierung in Tiflis, insbesondere Ministerpräsident Surab Nogaideli, hält die Gaspreiserhöhung von 110 auf 235 US-Dollar je 1.000 Kubikmeter für „rein politisch“.

Über die genauen Vereinbarungen und deren Umfang macht Georgien derzeit keine Angaben. Bestätigt werden lediglich die Aussagen von Gazprom-Vizepräsident Alexander Medwedew. Er spricht von drei Verträgen über Lieferungen von insgesamt 1,1 Milliarden Kubikmetern Gas. Gleichzeitig betonte er, dass der Gaspreis auch hätte sinken können. Georgien habe sich jedoch geweigert, Vermögensbeteiligungen an Gazprom zu verkaufen. Gemeint ist damit das Gasnetz des Landes, an dem der russische Konzern offenbar Interesse hat. Die georgische Regierung sucht bereits nach Auswegen. Sie plant, künftig bis zu 70 Prozent des Gasbedarfs über Aserbaidschan zu decken und auch mit dem Iran zu verhandeln. Das wird die ohnehin angespannte Lage zwischen Russland und Georgien kaum bessern. Und die russische Regierung zögert nicht, Gaslieferungen kurzerhand einzustellen. Bestes Beispiel ist die Ukraine.

GEOPOLITIK: Putin markiert Präsenz. Besuch in Aserbeidschan. Von Daniel Wechlin, Moskau (nzz.ch)

(nzz.ch) Putin demonstriert mit einer Visite in Baku die Interessen Russlands an der politisch und ökonomisch umworbenen Region am Kaspischen Meer. Aserbeidschans Staatschef Alijew steht derweil vor seiner Wiederwahl.

Präsident Putin bei seinem Treffen mit dem aserbeidschanischen Amtskollegen Alijew. Präsident Putin bei seinem Treffen mit dem aserbeidschanischen Amtskollegen Alijew. (Bild: Keystone / AP)

Der russische Präsident Wladimir Putin ist am Dienstag zu einem Arbeitsbesuch mit seinem aserbeidschanischen Amtskollegen Ilham Alijew in Baku zusammengetroffen. Zentraler Bestandteil der Gespräche waren die Handels- und Wirtschaftsbeziehungen und damit vor allem die Zusammenarbeit im Energiesektor. Diverse Abkommen wurden ratifiziert. Auf der politischen Agenda standen unter anderem der Karabachkonflikt, Iran sowie Territorialstreitigkeiten um das Kaspische Meer. Putins Visite in der Südkaukasus-Republik fand vor dem Hintergrund statt, dass sich Baku vermehrt um politische, ökonomische und militärische Kooperationen mit dem Westen, nicht zuletzt mit den USA und der Nato, bemüht und im Land am 9. Oktober Präsidentschaftswahlen anstehen, in denen Alijew die dritte Wiederwahl anstrebt.

Russland verfolgt in der Region eine ambivalente Politik. Einerseits agiert Moskau als Schutzmacht Armeniens, mit dem Aserbeidschan im Streit um die international nicht anerkannte Republik Nagorni Karabach liegt. Das Gebiet wird von Armenien kontrolliert, das überdies Teile von sieben weiteren aserbeidschanischen Provinzen besetzt hält. Im Mediationsverfahren der Minsker Gruppe der OSZE kommt Russland eine Schlüsselposition zu. Doch die Gespräche sind seit Jahren blockiert. Andererseits liefert Moskau an Baku Waffen. Erst im Juni berichteten russische Medien, Aserbeidschan habe unlängst eine weitere Grosslieferung von Panzern und Raketensystemen erhalten. Der Kreml ringt zudem in Konkurrenz mit Baku und den anderen Anrainerstaaten des Kaspischen Meeres um territoriale Ansprüche sowie um die Exploration von Rohstoffvorkommen. Ferner ist Moskau um ein gutes Auskommen mit Iran bemüht, das ein problembeladenes Verhältnis mit Aserbeidschan hat und die Initiativen der USA in der Region mit Argwohn beobachtet.

Präsident Putin markiert in diesem vielschichtigen Interessengeflecht mit seinem Besuch Präsenz. Gleichzeitig stärkt er Alijew für die kommenden Wahlen symbolisch den Rücken. Dessen Erfolg steht jedoch praktisch bereits fest. Das repressive Regime hat die schwache Opposition fest im Griff. Regierungskritiker stehen unter massivem Druck. Proteste werden konsequent niedergeschlagen. Allein im Zusammenhang mit Aktionen rund um den bevorstehenden Urnengang spricht Amnesty International von 14 neuen politischen Gefangenen.


Die marginalisierten Oppositionsparteien versuchen sich derweil zu organisieren. Der Nationale Rat der demokratischen Kräfte hat sich auf Rustam Ibrahimbekow als Kandidaten für das Präsidentenamt verständigt. Der 74-Jährige ist ein bekannter Drehbuchautor und Kritiker der aserbeidschanischen Machtelite. Aus Angst vor einer Festnahme hält er sich gegenwärtig allerdings nicht in Aserbeidschan auf. 

Analyse: Der nutzlose Putin  

VIDEO: Israel und Aserbaidschan gemeinsam gegen den Iran (youtube.com)

FEATURE: Tangle in the Caucasus. Iran and Israel Fight for Influence in Azerbaijan. By Alex Vatanka (foreignaffairs.com)

David Mdzinarishvili / Courtesy Reuters)

(foreignaffairs.com) As Iran’s progress on its nuclear program continues unabated, 2013 may well mark the climax of the long-standing impasse between the Islamic Republic and the West. Hopes for a diplomatic solution are fading, and an Israeli or a U.S. military strike on Iran’s nuclear program seems increasingly likely. The potential fallout from such an action for the United States, Europe, and the Middle East has been the object of frequent speculation; far less discussed, although no less pertinent, is what a violent confrontation would mean for the South Caucasus -- an area just north of Iran where the standoff between the Islamic Republic and the West is already palpable in everyday life. Long considered a powder keg, the region, which includes Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia, is once again on the brink.

At the center of the tensions in the region lies Azerbaijan, a country with firm historical and cultural connections to Iran but one whose interests have overlapped with those of Israel, the Islamic Republic’s mortal enemy. During his visit to Baku last October, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad described his country’s relationship with Azerbaijan as “brotherly and very deep,” drawing on the two countries’ shared ethnic and religious heritage. (Ethnic Azeris populate much of the northwest region of Iran, which is also known as Azerbaijan, and both countries are predominantly Shia.) Ahmadinejad’s statement, however, blatantly misrepresented the current state of affairs; today, it is not historical affinity but rather intense suspicion and rivalry that shape ties between Baku and Tehran. The same month Ahmadinejad made the statement, a court in Baku gave lengthy prison sentences to 22 Azerbaijanis charged with spying for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and plotting to carry out attacks against U.S. and Israeli targets in Azerbaijan. Meanwhile, in December, Tehran kicked up a fuss after ethnic separatists from the northwest Iranian region of Azerbaijan held a conference in Baku.

Yet Ahmadinejad’s statement in Baku was not entirely insincere. Over the past few months, Iranian officials and the state-controlled media have stressed Tehran’s desire for friendlier relations with Baku; at the same time, they are prodding the Azerbaijani government to reconsider its foreign policy alignments -- principally its close ties with Israel. Nowhere in its immediate neighborhood does Iran see such an unambiguous Israeli footprint as it does in Azerbaijan. Israel and Azerbaijan share the common goal of containing Iranian influence. In this joint front, Azerbaijan provides proximity to Iran -- with much speculation about Azerbaijani soil being used as a staging ground for Israeli military operations -- while Israel possesses superior weapons technologies and other resources. But the Azerbaijani-Israeli partnership does not rely solely on the question of Iran; it spans broader economic and military cooperation, trade and investment, and mutual diplomatic support. For Iranian leaders, this uncomfortable reality has raised the stakes, forcing them to vacillate between threats and overtures in their attempts to sever Baku’s relationship with Israel.

Nevertheless, although the Israeli presence in Azerbaijan is a significant security concern for Iran, it represents only one aspect of Tehran’s interests in the South Caucasus. In fact, the three countries of the region view their large southern neighbor through very different lenses. Iran enjoys cordial ties with Georgia and intimate relations with Armenia, which has helped Tehran evade sanctions through its banking sector. As the Western standoff with Iran plays out over the next year, scholars and policymakers alike cannot afford to ignore the parallel developments in the South Caucasus.

INTERTWINED HISTORY

It has been nearly 200 years since Iran lost its foothold in the South Caucasus. In 1813 and 1828, having repeatedly failed to repel invading Russian armies, the Persian Qajar dynasty signed the treaties of Gulistan and Turkmenchay. With the two agreements, Persia relinquished to the Russian Empire its territorial claims on most of the eastern parts of present-day Georgia and the territories that now make up Armenia and Azerbaijan. In Iran, the word “Qajar” is still synonymous with territorial loss and national humiliation.

Occasional statements from Tehran leave no doubt that many Iranians still consider the South Caucasus part of their historical domain, a sphere where deference to Iranian interests is expected if not vocally demanded. In August 2011, General Hassan Firouzabadi, the chief of staff of Iran’s armed forces, lambasted the Azerbaijani government for its secular policies and ties to Israel. In an explicit threat, Firouzabadi warned of insurrection in Azerbaijan, stating that “Iranian blood flows in the veins of the people of [Azerbaijan], and their hearts beat for Islam.”

As two of only four Shia-majority countries in the world, Azerbaijan and Iran share important religious ties. And there are more ethnic Azeris living in Iran (estimated at 15-20 million) than in the Republic of Azerbaijan itself (around nine million). Many families have branches on both sides of the Azerbaijani-Iranian border. With so many commonalities, Azerbaijan and Iran would seem likely to be natural allies.

But the opposite has been the case. When Azerbaijan broke away from the Soviet Union in 1991, Tehran quickly recognized it as an independent state, hoping that it would serve as fertile ground for spreading the Islamic revolution. But from the early days of independence, the Azerbaijani elite evinced no interest in emulating Iran’s marriage of religion and politics, looking instead to secular Turkey as its prime political and economic partner. Iran’s initial euphoria at the prospect of a new Shia state quickly turned into dread, as Baku expressed irredentist sentiments and promoted the idea of a “Greater Azerbaijan,” which would unite Azerbaijan (the country) and Azerbaijan (the region in northwest Iran). Fearing Baku’s intentions to fuel secessionism inside its borders, Iran provided vital backing to Armenia in its war against Azerbaijan over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, which dragged on from 1988 to 1994 and ended in an inconclusive cease-fire. In Azerbaijan, Iran’s stance in that unfinished war has never been forgiven, and Tehran has continued to support Armenia ever since.  

From the end of the Nagorno-Karabakh war in 1994 to the early years of the twenty-first century, formal relations between Azerbaijan and Iran grew more stable. Tehran broadly acknowledged that the South Caucasus fell within Russia’s sphere of influence and thus avoided playing its Islamist card too blatantly in Azerbaijan; Moscow is highly sensitive to Islamism on its southern flank. Meanwhile, during the tenure of Azerbaijani President Heydar Aliyev, from 1993 to 2003, Baku quieted its calls for unification with the northwest Iranian region of Azerbaijan. In recognition of the improved relations, Iran rewarded Azerbaijan with a consulate in the northern Iranian city of Tabriz, the world’s second-largest Azeri-populated city.

Since Ilham Aliyev became president of Azerbaijan in 2003, however, Baku has grown both considerably richer -- thanks to revenues from energy exports -- and noticeably bolder in its foreign policy. Nothing exemplifies this latter shift more vividly than the close ties Azerbaijan has forged with Israel, despite knowing full well that this would anger Iran. Azerbaijan has been adamant that Iran has no basis to criticize its ties with the Jewish state given that Tehran has long ignored Baku’s pleas to shun Christian Armenia.

When Tehran has appealed to Azerbaijan’s Islamic identity, the Azerbaijanis quickly point out that Tehran’s relations with Armenia have been trouble-free compared with its ties with its Muslim neighbors. Armenia and Iran have signed more than 30 bilateral agreements, and Iran provides Armenia with roughly 23 percent of its natural gas supply -- the country’s chief source of energy. As Araz Azimov, Azerbaijan’s deputy foreign minister, recently put it: “Iran gives life to Armenia.”

A PRECARIOUS BALANCE

A cycle of provocation and retaliation has become the central characteristic of Iranian-Azerbaijani relations in recent years. Tit-for-tat measures have included arrests of each other’s citizens on charges of espionage, most recently in March and July 2012; deadly border incidents in July and October of the previous year; the recall of ambassadors in May 2012, after Tehran protested against the burning of pictures of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, at a rally in Baku; and plenty of incendiary rhetoric.

Last February, when Azerbaijan signed a $1.6 billion defense deal with Israel that included air defense systems, intelligence equipment, and unmanned aerial vehicles, Iran was swift to condemn the Aliyev government. Tehran claims that Baku has given the Mossad a blank check to conduct operations against Iran from Azerbaijani soil. Esmail Kosari, a senior member of the Iranian parliament and a former IRGC commander, said that “Azerbaijan’s cooperation with the U.S. and Israeli spy agencies will harm the Azeri people” and claimed that Iran had documents showing “Azeri officials have helped Mossad and CIA agents” in “the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists.” (The documents have not yet been publicly released.) Baku, meanwhile, complains that Tehran does not respect Azerbaijan’s sovereignty, finances radical Islamist groups in the region, and is willing to go to any length to undermine the legitimacy of its leadership, including sponsoring anti-Aliyev broadcasts in the Azeri language.

Yet, despite all the acrimony, neither side appears ready to let ties plunge much further. At the Non-Aligned Movement conference in Tehran last September, the Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov reportedly told his Iranian hosts that “Azerbaijan will never allow an action against Iran from its soil.” Shortly thereafter, Iran’s vice president, Hassan Mousavi, extended an olive branch by visiting Aliyev in Baku, and Iran released two Azerbaijanis who had been arrested on charges of espionage. In turn, Baku released an Azerbaijani citizen who had been charged with spying for Iran.

Tehran’s recent overtures to Azerbaijan are part of a broader effort to limit Iran’s isolation and prevent Baku from aiding or joining an Israeli or U.S. military operation against its nuclear program. But these worries are vastly exaggerated. Baku fully understands the security risks it would face in the event of a war between Iran and the West, including mass refugee inflows, inaccessibility to the semi-autonomous exclave of Nakhchivan (an Azerbaijani region sandwiched between southern Armenia and northern Iran), and, in the worst case, direct Iranian military retaliation. Moreover, there is no evidence that Baku would look to an attack on Iran as an opportune moment to realize its irredentist dreams. It is clear that the idea lacks momentum among Azeris living in Iran, a fact that the leadership in Baku is well aware of. As one senior Azerbaijani parliamentarian, Asim Mollazade, put it to me in Baku, “No serious person in Azerbaijan speaks of unification [with the south].”

The standoff between Iran and the West also threatens Armenia. Ever since Armenia’s borders with Turkey and Azerbaijan closed in 1993, Yerevan has grown reliant on Iran and Georgia, which have become Armenia’s sole avenues to world markets and its principal trading partners. A war involving Iran, therefore, would almost definitely harm Armenia’s economic interests.

And the political impact could be greater still: the main fear in Yerevan at the moment is that Tehran might be forced to reassess its close ties with Armenia as a result of the impasse. If Iran wants to mollify Azerbaijan to ensure that it does not aid the United States or Israel in a military operation, Tehran might agree to distance itself from Armenia. From Armenia’s perspective, however, this would be the worst-case scenario, because it could embolden Azerbaijan and tempt it to seek a military solution in Nagorno-Karabakh. Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan recently suggested that Baku’s defense buildup could be a precursor to a new round of war: in 2003, Baku spent $175 million on defense; in 2012, the figure was estimated at $4.3 billion. Government officials across the South Caucasus are now experiencing first-hand the cost of the region’s three unresolved territorial disputes (Nagorno-Karabakh, South Ossetia, and Abkhazia): when the status quo is so fragile, any jolt to the geopolitical landscape has the potential to reignite old, violent conflicts.

Where does Iran fit in the geopolitical landscape of the South Caucasus? For starters, Tehran’s latest political maneuvers vis-à-vis Azerbaijan are driven by the perception that its security is at risk. Although it is debatable whether Azerbaijan has agreed to become a launchpad for Israeli operations, that is Tehran’s assumption, which in turn guides the mix of Iranian threats and conciliatory measures aimed at Baku. But there is also a larger factor at play: the ascendency of Azerbaijan as an economic and military player. That, more than anything else, is forcing Tehran to recalibrate its overall approach to the South Caucasus.

Whether or not the confrontation between Iran and the West comes to a head in 2013, the South Caucasus will remain entangled in the stalemate with much at stake. Azerbaijan is unlikely to abandon its deepening ties with Israel or pursue adventurous actions against Iran. From Baku’s perspective, being wooed by both Iran and Israel has its benefits, despite the fact that Israel is the more reliable partner. This regional dynamic, in turn, weakens the hand of Armenia, which understandably fears a more aggressive Azerbaijani posture. On the whole, the standoff between Iran and the West is shifting the geopolitics of the South Caucasus. Both a more stable peace and another descent into war seem but a hair’s breadth away.

+++

The standoff between Iran and the West has moved into the Caucasus, where both the Islamic Republic and Israel are trying to woo Azerbaijan -- a country with firm historical connections to Iran but whose interests have overlapped with those of Israel. The dynamic is upsetting the regional balance of power and threatening to overturn nearly two decades of uneasy peace.

ALEX VATANTKA is a scholar at the Middle East Institute.

POLITIC REVIEW: No Need to Panic Over Georgia-Iran Ties. By Michael Cecire (worldpoliticsreview.com)

(worldpoliticsreview.com) On Dec. 5, the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe and Eurasia heard testimony from American Enterprise Institute resident scholar Michael Rubin on Iran’s influence in the South Caucasus. While Rubin detailed Iran’s close ties to Armenia and contrasted them to Iran’s uneasy relationship with Azerbaijan, he closed his testimony with unexpected warnings of a potential Georgian alignment with Iran (pdf).

“The victory of [Prime Minister] Bidzina Ivanishvili's Georgian Dream party in October 2012 elections threatens to radically reorient the Republic of Georgia, which, under President Mikheil Saakashvili, has been reliably pro-Western,” cautioned Rubin, adding that Ivanishvili’s pledge to improve ties with Moscow could be a prelude to a Russia-Iran-Georgia axis. “A reorientation of Georgia’s relationship with Iran might accompany its shift to Moscow.” Yet, despite the enormity of this allegation, Rubin provided no evidence that any such reorientation is actually imminent. 
In fact, the implication that Georgia’s recently elected government could be building a haven for Iranian anti-Western activities is unsubstantiated, and it ignores the previous government’s many overtures toward Tehran. However, there are legitimate concerns that Iranian investments in and accords with Georgia could help the Islamic Republic to evade the crippling international sanctions regime. 
The victory of Ivanishvili’s upstart Georgian Dream coalition over Saakashvili’s formerly ruling United National Movement (UNM) almost certainly does not presage any kind of Tbilisi-Tehran alignment. While relations between Georgia and Iran have improved over the past several years, it was the UNM-led government that spearheaded and eagerly pursued this improvement while it was in power. In 2010, Georgia and Iran signed accords opening a new Iranian Consulate in Batumi and eliminating visa requirements for each other’s citizens, which led to an influx of Iranian tourists to Georgia’s Black Sea resorts. The accords came only months after Saakashvili hailed the much-criticized, and soon aborted, nuclear fuel swap deal between Iran and Turkey, which he described as “diplomatic heroism, which will go down in history.” 
Under the UNM, the volume of trade between Iran and Georgia more than tripled from 2006 to 2011, according to the National Statistics Office of Georgia. In the same period, foreign direct investment from Iran increased almost 25-fold. However, Iran still represents only a modest portion of Georgian trade and FDI, at approximately $81 million and a little more than $1 million in 2011, respectively. 
For its part, the new Georgian Dream government, which won a surprise victory over the UNM in October’s parliamentary elections, has made no indication that it plans to build upon the UNM’s generous outreach to Iran. If anything, the new government’s prioritization of domestic issues is likely to keep Iran from featuring prominently on Ivanishvili’s agenda, barring any major geopolitical developments. And perhaps more importantly, even Tbilisi’s pre-existing relationship with Iran is more a function of regional dynamics than any concerted attempt to forge an alliance. 
Kornely Kakachia, a political scientist at Tbilisi State University and the executive director of the Georgian Institute of Politics, has argued that “Georgia’s current policy toward Iran is not irrational.” In analyzing Georgia-Iran relations (.pdf), Kakachia concluded that “Georgia’s shrewd game of regional realpolitik neither shifts its core foreign policy orientation nor conflicts with its primary goals of integration with the [European Union] and NATO.” 
Instead, while Georgia’s ties with Iran do serve to diversify Tbilisi’s foreign policy portfolio, the relationship is more about markets and investment. For example, when Russia suddenly closed the spigot of natural gas to the Georgian market in 2006, Iran continued to supply Georgia despite Moscow’s strong objections.
Though Georgia’s cultivation of ties with Iran might be logical -- and unlikely to bloom into anything more significant -- Georgia-Iran relations nonetheless have implications for U.S. efforts to contain Iran’s controversial nuclear program. On a visit to the South Caucasus in mid-December, Luke Bronin, the U.S. deputy assistant secretary of the treasury for terrorist financing and financial crimes, warned in particular about Iran’s attempts to bypass international sanctions through third-party states. 
“As Iran comes under increasing financial pressure, it will look for opportunities to build new relationships to evade sanctions,” he said at the time. “It is important for financial institutions and others, including here in Georgia, to recognize the serious risks of engaging with Iran.” 

George A. Lopez, a political scientist at the University of Notre Dame and an expert on sanctions finance, notes that Bronin’s concerns could have something to do with Iran’s investments in Georgia, which it might hope to use to bypass international sanctions.
“The facilitation of sanctions evasion occurs in how the Iranians, with or without the knowledge and cooperation of Georgians, would seek to move cash, [or] use a legitimate investment as a cover for illegitimate flow of materials that are banned under the sanctions, and how the open visa relationship could permit travel of individuals on the sanctions list in ways that undercut their existing constraints under sanctions,” explains Lopez. “Thus, while building a big hotel for tourists is in and of itself legitimate, the question is whether or not the tourists from Tehran are bringing bags filled with cash that cannot be moved any other way to buyers of Iranian products that are on the sanctions list.”
Given that Georgia has gained a reputation as a regional nexus for nuclear smuggling, suspicions about ulterior motives behind Iranian investments there are all too plausible. And with the former government’s embrace of Iranian investments and tourists, there is always the possibility that legitimate enthusiasm for economic benefits could have trumped due diligence, providing Iran with avenues for sanctions evasion. 
Georgia’s relationship with Iran does deserve careful scrutiny. Given the size and pace of Iranian involvement in Georgia since 2006, there are sure to be issues and questions concerning means and ends. But dubious, politically charged conjecture directed against Georgia's new government only serves as an unhelpful distraction at a time when cooperation between Tbilisi and Western capitals should be preserved and expanded in the service of common interests.
Michael Hikari Cecire is a Black Sea/Eurasia regional analyst and associate scholar at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, where he contributes to the Project on Democratic Transitions. He is also a contributing analyst for Wikistrat.
Photo: Georgian Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili, Oct. 2, 2012 (Voice of America photo).

IN MOTION: Free Nowrooz. Photos by Thomas Dworzak (magnumphotos.com)

(inmotion.magnumphotos.com) Because of strict Islamic laws of the Islamic Republic of Iran, more liberal minded Iranians need to travel abroad to celebrate Nowrooz in freedom. Thomas Dworzak takes a look at the Nowrooz celebrations in Georgia.

Play Essay >>> 
 

Thomas Dworzak's portfolio

SANKTIONEN: Iran will Bankgeschäfte mit Armenien machen (zeit.de)

(zeit.de) Der Iran versucht einen Weg zu finden, trotz der Sanktionen des Westens seine Bankgeschäfte abzuwickeln: Nun soll es Gespräche mit dessen Handelspartner Armenien geben.

Um ihre Bankgeschäfte abwickeln zu können, versucht der Iran eine Einigung mit Armenien zu finden. Dies erfuhr die Nachrichtenagentur Reuters aus vertraulichen Gesprächen mit Diplomaten, sowie aus verschiedenen Dokumenten. Der Schritt sei notwendig geworden, um die wegen der Sanktionen ausgefallenen Kontakte zu vielen Ländern wettzumachen. Die frühere Sowjet-Republik Armenien erklärte, das Land unterhalte keine illegalen Banken-Verbindungen zum Iran.

Auf Basis der bestehenden Sanktionen ist es nicht grundsätzlich verboten, mit iranischen Banken Geschäfte zu machen. Voraussetzung ist aber, dass die Transaktionen nichts mit dem Atom- oder Raketen-Programm des Landes zu tun haben oder mit Firmen oder Einzelpersonen, die mit Sanktionen von den USA, der Europäischen Union (EU) oder den Vereinten Nationen (UN) belegt sind.

Die Sanktionen haben dazu geführt, dass der Iran kaum noch Finanztransaktionen in Dollar oder Euro abwickeln kann. Ein Expertenbericht der Vereinten Nationen (UN) kam jüngst zu dem Schluss, dass der Iran mit Hochdruck nach Wegen sucht, um die Restriktionen für seinen Bankensektor zu umgehen. Diplomaten hatten dabei ebenfalls Armenien genannt.

Das Land pflegt Handelsverbindungen zum Iran. Dazu zählt unter anderem eine im Bau befindliche Ölleitung. Nach Angaben der iranischen Führung haben die Beziehungen insgesamt ein Volumen von rund einer Milliarde Dollar pro Jahr. Um den Handel abzuwickeln, bedarf es auch einiger Bankkontakte, die damit bereits bestehen dürften. Ein festeres Standbein in der Landeswährung eines Nachbarlandes wie Armenien könnte für den Iran hilfreich sein, um Zahlungskontakte mit dem Ausland zu verschleiern.

Jüngst war die britische Bank Standard Chartered in die Schlagzeilen geraten. Über Jahre hinweg soll sie Transaktionen mit dem Iran in Milliardenhöhe bewusst an den US-Behörden vorbei getätigt haben. Am Montag schrieb die New York Times unter Berufung auf Justizkreise, verschiedene US-Behörden untersuchten auch die Deutsche Bank und andere internationale Großbanken. Es gehe um den Vorwurf, die Institute hätten Milliarden Dollar für den Iran, Sudan und andere sanktionierte Nationen durch ihre US-Filialen geleitet. 

+++

Iran trickst bei Banken-Sanktionen (ftd.de)

PODCAST: Gegenseitige Anschuldigungen belasten die Beziehungen. Der Iran und Aserbaidschan. Von Gesine Dornblüth (dradio.de)

 Podcast (zum hören) >>>

(dradio.de) Das Verhältnis zwischen Aserbaidschan und dem Iran ist äußerst kompliziert. Im Iran nämlich gibt es eine große aserbaidschanische Minderheit; Schätzungen sprechen von etwa 30 Millionen Menschen. Sie sehen sich tendenziell unterdrückt. Die Führung des Iran wirft dem Nachbarstaat hingegen vor, diese Minderheit aufzuhetzen.

Bild: Deutschlandradio - Gesine Dornblüth

Ein Hinterhaus in einem Randbezirk der aserbaidschanischen Hauptstadt Baku. Eine Treppe führt in einen fensterlosen Raum. Scheinwerfer. Mikrofone. Ein Tisch. Vorhänge in verschiedenen Farben. Eine Staffelei. Eine Buchstabentafel mit dem aserbaidschanischen Alphabet.

Es ist das Studio des privaten Fernsehsenders Günaz TV. Güney heißt Süden, Günaz steht für Südaserbaidschan. Der Kanal sendet aus Baku für Aserbaidschaner im südlichen Nachbarland Iran. Araz Obali leitet das Programm.

"Wir wollen den Südaserbaidschanern eine Stimme geben. Damit die Welt von ihren Problemen erfährt."

Günaz TV sendet auf aserbaidschanisch und persisch. Das Hauptprogramm kommt aus den USA, ein Exiliraner aserbaidschanischer Herkunft finanziert es. Das kleine Studio in Baku liefert einige Sendungen zu: Malkurse, Volkstanz, zwei Mal täglich Aserbaidschanisch-Unterricht, eine wöchentliche politische Talkshow. Aserbaidschaner im Iran und Aserbaidschaner im heutigen Aserbaidschan waren mal in einer Nation vereint. Günaz TV tritt für die Wiedervereinigung ein.

"Wir sind ein Volk, wir haben dieselben Bräuche, dieselbe Sprache, dieselbe Kultur. Natürlich muss das Volk darüber entscheiden - aber wir sind dafür, dass der Norden und der Süden vereinigt werden. So kann hier ein starker demokratischer Staat entstehen."

Solche Äußerungen aus den USA und aus Aserbaidschan sind aus Sicht Teherans eine Provokation. Im Iran sitzen mehrere aserbaidschanisch-stämmige Journalisten im Gefängnis - wegen regierungskritischer Veröffentlichungen oder verbotener Kontakte zu Ausländern. Baku hetze die aserbaidschanische Minderheit im Iran auf, heißt es in Teheran.

Die Anschuldigungen beruhen auf Gegenseitigkeit. Aserbaidschanische Regierungsvertreter werfen dem Iran wiederum vor, dass ihre geistlichen Führer islamistisches Gedankengut in Aserbaidschan verbreiten.

Aserbaidschan ist ein säkularer Staat. Anfang des Jahres nahmen die aserbaidschanischen Behörden mehrere Personen fest - angeblich Agenten des Iran. Es hieß, sie hätten Anschläge auf die Botschaften Israels und der USA in Baku geplant. Der Politologe Elhan Shahinoglu hält das für schlüssig. Er ist ein engagierter Gegner des Regimes im Iran.

"Es gibt hier eine gut organisierte fünfte Kolonne der iranischen Regierung. In unseren Moscheen. Der Iran kann jederzeit den Knopf drücken, damit sie zum Einsatz kommt. Besonders an der Südgrenze zum Iran, aber auch rund um unsere Hauptstadt Baku gibt es Dörfer, in denen fast die ganze Bevölkerung mit dem Iran sympathisiert."

Dass die Islamisten in einigen Dörfern Aserbaidschans Gehör finden, hat sich allerdings auch die Regierung Aserbaidschans selbst zu zuschreiben. Sie gilt als korrupt, und weite Teile der Bevölkerung fühlen sich vom Staat allein gelassen. Auch daher die Begeisterung für islamistisches Gedankengut.

Die Konflikte zwischen Aserbaidschan und Iran haben aber noch mehr Facetten. Beide Staaten streiten miteinander und mit weiteren Anrainern des Kaspischen Meeres um die Gasvorkommen auf dem Meeresgrund. Der Grenzverlauf im Kaspischen Meer ist nicht geklärt. Vagif Alijew leitet die Abteilung für Investitionen des staatlichen aserbaidschanischen Ölkonzerns Socar, der auch Gas fördert. Der Konflikt mit dem Iran schädige das Geschäft, sagt der Manager.

"Wir können deshalb nicht langfristig planen. Es wird Zeit, die Seegrenzen endlich festzulegen."

Ein weiterer kritischer Punkt im Verhältnis zwischen den Nachbarn: Aserbaidschan pflegt beste Beziehungen zu Israel, dem Erzfeind des Iran. Israel liefert Waffen nach Aserbaidschan: Drohnen und Flugabwehrsysteme im Wert von mehr als einer Milliarde Euro. Im Gegenzug bekommt Israel aserbaidschanisches Öl. Der Iran betrachtet diese Geschäfte mit Argusaugen. Zu Unrecht, meint der aserbaidschanische Politologe Elhan Shahinoglu.

"Unsere Staatsführung erklärt dem Iran ständig, dass diese Waffen nicht gegen den Iran gerichtet sind. Wir wollen Berg-Karabach zurück. Daher brauchen wir die Waffen."

Berg-Karabach ist Teil Aserbaidschans und seit etwa 20 Jahren von Armeniern besetzt. Aserbaidschan fordert das Gebiet zurück. Internationale Versuche, in dem Konflikt zu vermitteln, schlugen bisher fehl. Aserbaidschanische und armenische Soldaten liegen sich in Schützengräben gegenüber. Dieser Konflikt mit Armenien um Berg-Karabach bestimmt nahezu die gesamte Politik Aserbaidschans. Und hier liegt noch ein weiterer Stachel in den Beziehungen zum Iran: Der Iran pflegt nämlich recht gute Beziehungen zu Armenien. Insbesondere in der Energiewirtschaft arbeiten beide Staaten eng zusammen - und das können die Aserbaidschaner nicht ertragen. Shahinoglu:

"Bei offiziellen Treffen sagt der Iran ständig: Wir sind für die territoriale Integrität Aserbaidschans. Aber in Wirklichkeit unterstützen sie Armenien. Ich denke, solange die Führung im Iran nicht abgelöst wird, dürften sich die Beziehungen zwischen Aserbaidschan und dem Iran nicht bessern."

Manche Beobachter fürchten, dass Aserbaidschan einen möglichen Krieg im Iran nutzen könnte, um im Zuge der allgemeinen Wirren selbst zu den Waffen zu greifen und Berg-Karabach mit Gewalt zurückzuholen. Vertreter der Regierung und der Opposition weisen dies jedoch zurück. Der Ölmanager Vagif Alijew vom Staatskonzern Socar meint:

"Niemand hat Interesse an einer Eskalation im Iran. Und deshalb hoffen wir sehr, dass die internationalen Vermittler den Konflikt um das Atomprogramm entschärfen. Denn ein Krieg nützt niemandem."

ANALYSE: Why Does Iran Support Armenia About Karabakh Issue? By Mehmet Fatih Öztarsu (strategicoutlook.org)

(strategicoutlook.org) The balance in Caucasus that shifted with the collapse of the Soviet Union caused a big change in the foreign policy vision of the states in the region. While examining the problems that emerged between republics, which gained their sovereignty, it is possible to see the changes in foreign policy of neighboring countries. The attempt by neighboring countries and international organizations to expand their influence into Nagorno-Karabakh, one of the region’s unsolved problems, indicate the results of the aforementioned changes in foreign policy expansion. The attitude of Iran, one of the dominant actors in the region, regarding the events occurring in Caucasus varies from time to time. For Iran, Russia’s loss of power after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the threat of communism paved the way for the emergence of new threats. All kinds of groundswells influencing Iran via Caucasus throughout history caused, in the new political sphere, the spread of the threat of ethnic nationalism. The reason why Iran can’t ignore this threat is that Iran’s borders with neighboring countries are surrounded by different ethnic groups.

Today, close to 25 million Azerbaijani Turks live in the Southern Azerbaijan region, which is on the Caucasus border of the country. Iran is worried about the activities of West-oriented units in the region that could carry out joint incursions with Russia about the Nagorno-Karabakh issue, the most important matter of conflict in South Caucasus, thereby Iran bears a varying attitude towards it because of Iran’s national security concerns. The attitude of Iran, which acts by using Islamic revolution discourse as a basis for its foreign policy just like in its other policies, regarding the Nagorno-Karabakh issue is to keep balanced relations with both sides. Iran must behave warmly to Armenia especially due to the ethnic structure of South Azerbaijan, and it is also believed that the country may be adopting such an attitude because of the instability of its alliances with big states. As for Armenia, which has closed its border checkpoints with Turkey and Azerbaijan and could have been faced with a dead end, but instead can meet its need to access other countries comfortably through Iran, and it can also establish important commercial and energy partnerships with the country. Iran mentioned that it respects the territorial integrity of countries right from the beginning of the Nagorno-Karabakh problem. Iran’s expressing this discourse as a principle and its engaging in conciliatory activities are policies that Iran pursues for the purpose of taking advantage of balances in the region in a way or for the purpose of minimizing prospective damages. With regards to this issue, in Baku in 1992, Iran’s foreign n affairs minister told Azerbaijani officials, for the first time that Iran can be mediator country between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Iranian Foreign Affairs Minister Mahmud Vaezi’s held talks in Baku and Yerevan in order to negotiate about the details of the ceasefire and the exchange of captives, however, Armenia’s invasion of Shusha’s and Lachin’s caused Iran’s conciliation attempts to fail.

Iran Under The Thumb Of Russia

Feeling the dominance of Russia in all of the developments in the region, Iran again pursued a solution under Russia’s terms for the Nagorno-Karabakh issue. This resulted in the emergence of closer relations with Armenia. Additionally, Azerbaijan’s sympathy towards the Turkey-Israel strategic alliance towards the end of 1990s was responded to with Iran’s sympathy towards the Yerevan-Athens-Moscow alliance. With this alliance becoming ineffective in the aftermath of Sept. 11, Iran headed towards strengthening its relations with Turkey and Azerbaijan and from time to time it disapproved of Armenia’s invasion in Nagorno-Karabakh.

The shifting attitude of Iran, which doesn’t mention any religious or ethnic terms while describing the Nagorno-Karabakh issue, may be explained in various terms. The threat that the Turkic society in South Azerbaijan may be sympathetic with Azerbaijan, in the case that the problem is solved, is one of Iran’s biggest concerns. According to Iran, Armenia is a country that should be counted among the ranks of Russia. And Turkey’s dominance in Caucasus may be decreased by through diplomatic tensions between Turkey and Armenia; and Iran can create some chances via the Armenia diaspora in the West and it can even gain support from the diaspora in terms of improving its image in the international community. As a matter of fact this latest issue is directly related to the Armenians in Syria that support the Assad regime. The attitudes of Iran, which considers Armenia as a means of changing the balance in the region and makes expansions based on their view of Armenia, about the Nagorno-Karabakh issue have been majorly influenced by anti-Iran discourses of the Abulfaz Elchibey period. Making an emphasis on sectarian integrity for South Azerbaijani people, Iran has made special efforts to strengthen cultural ties. It is unfavorable for Iran that the clashes taking place in the region affect its own land. Another issue is the necessity for the existence of a common policy that Iran can move together with Russia against Western impact on the region. It seems that Iran has joined the ranks of Russia with its pro-Armenia attitude, which has caused a separate power balance in the region, and enabled Iran to be less concerned about its national security. With its desire to avoid the West-leaning effect of Turkey in the region and to hinder the possible influence of Turkey on Turkic people with its pro-Armenia attitudes, Iran wants to be a more effective actor in the Nagorno-Karabakh problem. Recently repeating its offer to become a mediator between Armenia and Azerbaijan, Iran, just like in the policy pursued by Russia, desires to make its presence felt via this problem.

Azerbaijan Expecting More Decisive Stance From Russia

In this matter, the message that Azerbaijan gave to Russia via its treatment of the Gabala Radar Station issue must also be handled. Keeping the Gabala issue as a trump card so far with regards to Moscow’s attitudes concerning the Karabakh issue, Azerbaijan wants to see a more decisive stance from Russia. According to the idea of some experts, Russia intends to mobilize this station and move it to Armenia or North Caucasus. With reference to recent radar station discussions, the role that Russia cast for Iran should be argued. Because of the showdown that started between Iran and Azerbaijan, inducing Russia and attempting to have good relations with Israel are important. Pursuing this way, Iran, which keeps on having problems with the West, desires to improve its image by means of strong lobbies from the Armenian diaspora, which carries out globally effective activities.

All these issues feature the fundamental issues that determine Iran’s attitude towards the Nagorno-Karabakh problem. Iran, as the neighboring country, which pursues a pro-Armenia policy due to the effect of the Turkic population in South Azerbaijan, is important in terms of the collective development towards peace. With reference to its impact on the solution of the problem, Iran, which will be unable to sustain its anti-West and pro-Russia inclination in terms of the existing problems in the region, has an indisputable importance as a neighboring country. What Iran gained by means of the decisions that it issued as a requirement of the policies it pursued in the region is another matter that should be questioned. In addition to that, Russia’s continual lack of involvement in regards to the Iranian nuclear issue causes curiosity about what the new policies will be. Iran’s mediation discourse, which it has started to frequently repeat, gives the impression that in the short term Iran will pursue a more conciliatory way that is open to a showdown with Azerbaijan because of different expectations and inducements.

Mehmet Fatih ÖZTARSU – Analyst, Strategic Outlook

More: independent.academia.edu/Mehmet Fatih Öztarsu

ASERBAIDSCHAN: Journalisten als Geisel im Konflikt mit Iran (reporter-ohne-grenzen.de)

© ddp images / AP / SHAKH AIVAZOV

(reporter-ohne-grenzen.de) Auslandskorrespondenten werden immer wieder zur Geisel politischer Spannungen zwischen Aserbaidschan und Iran. Ein Bakuer Gericht hat in der vergangenen Woche die Haftstrafe gegen Anar Bayramli, Baku-Korrespondent für das iranische Sahar TV, um die Hälfte reduziert. „Das ist zwar ein Signal in die richtige Richtung“, so Reporter ohne Grenzen (ROG) in Berlin, „doch wir halten das Vorgehen gegen Bayramli für politisch motiviert und fordern einen fairen Prozess für den Journalisten.“

Anar Bayramli wurde am 17. Februar in seiner Wohnung in Baku verhaftet und am 11. Juni wegen Drogenbesitzes zu zwei Jahren Gefängnis verurteilt. Am 2. August verkürzte ein Berufungsgericht die Strafe für den 31-jährigen Reporter um die Hälfte.

Bayramli hatte von Baku aus für verschiedene iranische Medien gearbeitet, unter anderem für Sahar TV und die Nachrichtenagentur Fars. Sahar TV ist der Auslandssender des iranischen Staatsfernsehens, der über Satellit die Propaganda des iranischen Regimes verbreitet.

Die Beziehungen zwischen Aserbaidschan und Iran sind angespannt – nicht nur, weil beide Länder um die Grenzen im rohstoffreichen Kaspischen Meer streiten. Iran stört sich an den engen Beziehungen Bakus zu den USA und Israel. Die aserbaidschanische Regierung wiederum beklagt den wachsenden Einfluss iranischer Geistlicher. Seit etwa einem Jahr verhaften die Behörden immer wieder islamische Gläubige, religiöse Schulen und Moscheen wurden geschlossen.

Zusammen mit dem Reporter Bayramli wurde im Februar dessen Fahrer Ramil Dadaschow verhaftet. Er wurde ohne Anklage festgehalten und erst am 16. Mai wieder freigelassen. Ein weiterer Journalist, Ramin Bayramow, sitzt nach wie vor im Gefängnis. Bei dem Herausgeber des Online-Portals islam-azeri.az wurden angeblich Drogen gefunden.

Dass Journalisten oder Menschenrechtsaktivisten in konstruierten und von Widersprüchen gekennzeichneten Prozessen wegen Drogenbesitzes verurteilt werden, ist ein bekanntes Muster in Aserbaidschan. So erging es Eynulla Fatullajew, der vier Jahre im Gefängnis saß, bevor ihn Präsident Alijew am 26. Mai 2011 – wenige Tage nach der Entscheidung für Baku als Austragungsort des Eurovision Song Contests – begnadigte. Auch der Blogger Jabbar Sawalan, der in sozialen Netzwerken zum Protest aufgerufen hatte, wurde im Februar 2011 verhaftet, wegen Drogenbesitzes verurteilt und erst nach knapp einem Jahr wieder freigelassen. Vor wenigen Wochen, am 21. Juni, nahm die Polizei den Chefredakteur der Minderheiten-Zeitung Tolishi Sado, Hilal Mammadow, fest. Die Staatsanwaltschaft warf ihm zunächst Drogenbesitz vor, änderte die Anklage jedoch wenig später in Spionage.

Nicht nur in Aserbaidschan, auch im Iran sitzen mehrere Journalisten wegen regierungskritischer Veröffentlichungen oder verbotener Kontakte zu Ausländern in Haft. Zu ihnen gehört Said Matinpur, der für die auf Aserbaidschanisch erscheinende Zeitung Yarpagh schrieb und 2007 zum ersten Mal verhaftet wurde. Seit dem 2. Mai 2012 werden zudem die beiden aserbaidschanischen Schriftsteller Farid Husejn und Shahrijar Hajizade vermisst, die sich zuletzt in Tabriz im Nordwesten Irans aufhielten.

Reporter ohne Grenzen zählt die Präsidenten Aserbaidschans und Irans, Ilcham Alijew und Mahmud Ahmadinedschad, zu den größten Feinden der Pressefreiheit weltweit. Auf der ROG-Rangliste der Pressefreiheit steht Aserbaidschan auf Platz 162 und Iran auf Platz 175 von 179.

Auf www.pressefreiheit-für-baku.de finden Sie weiterhin aktuelle Nachrichten zur Situation der Medien in Aserbaidschan.

Weitere Informationen in englischer Sprache finden Sie hier.

Pressekontakt:

Ulrike Gruska

Tel.: 030 202 15 10 – 16

PHOTOGRAPHY: Not One Moment, but Years. Interview with Temo Bardzimashvili. By By Zara Katz (lens.blogs.nytimes.com)

(lens.blogs.nytimes.com) Temo Bardzimashvili, a freelance photographer, received his master’s degree in 2009 from the Caucasus School of Journalism and Media Management. He has published work in The Washington Post, Bloomberg News, The Financial Times and The National, an English-language newspaper in Abu Dhabi. Mr. Bardzimashvili lives in Tbilisi, Georgia.

His conversation with Zara Katz has been edited.

Q. What is going on in this image?

A. I took this during the celebration of Ramadan in Azerbaijan. It is in an Azeri village where I was working on a project about Meskhetian Turks last year. In this village, most of the population is Azeri but about 25 percent are Meskhetian. This image is describing the end of the Ramadan prayer. In this mosque, most of the worshipers are Meskhetian.

Q. Why did you choose this image?

A. I can’t say that this is my favorite image but it is symbolic for me. It represents the multi-layeredness of images. I like images that people tend to return to, when the viewer is struck not only by the visual attractiveness, but also the tiny details that they discover later. Also, this particular photograph symbolizes quite a long time. It is not one particular moment that creates this image, but the whole period of time taking photos.

Nasrollah Kasraian: Celebration of Pir-e-Shahriar festival in the village of Oraman, Iran. Inspiration: From “Our Homeland Iran”
Photographer: Nasrollah Kasraian

I have taken pictures in different mosques and prayers during the last five years. Sometimes when you take a picture you try to concentrate on one element, like shoes. When people enter a mosque, they take their shoes off. It is visually attractive. Shoes are symbolic – they represent the worshiper. Of course I have taken pictures with shoes in mosques. But in this picture, I saw elements of all my previous mosque pictures and prayer pictures.

Q. When did you first see this photo?

A. I discovered him a year and a half ago during a trip to Tehran. I was looking for a photo book that was about Tehran and was lucky to come across this book called “Our Homeland Iran.” He is one of the greatest photographers that I have seen. He is really deep and operates with colors very well.

Most important for me was something that I discovered later when I checked on his background: He is one of those photographers who works on long-term projects. It took him 10 to 12 years to make this book. He said he worked on this photograph for two years to take this particular image. He was looking for the right situation and the right light.

Q. How did this image influence your work?

A. Most of the time we take snapshots. There might be good snapshots, but we don’t let ourselves work on images for a sufficient amount of time. To me, the Kasraian picture is a long-term picture. He had taken other pictures from other ceremonies which led to this image.

Working for a long time is not the only means of taking a good picture. Also, getting close to people. In order to get a deep picture you have to go through some stages to get there.

Just like Kasraian, I like to work on covering different ethnicities and traditions. Kasraian took an image of not a single person, but an ethnic group.

Follow @nytimesphoto and @ZaraKatZ on Twitter.

ARTICLE: The Warming of the Caspian Cold War. By Casey Michel (registan.net)

(registan.net) The Caspian Sea first crept into the world’s cognizance sometime in 1873. Utilizing machinery constructed in nearby Bibi-Heybat Bay, jutting to the south of Baku, oil workers installed the world’s first offshore and machine-drilled wells, setting their engineering skills on the viscous black gold roiling underneath the Absheron peninsula. Gas-lit lamps and foreign nationals soon peopled the Azeri capital, and, by 1900, Baku boasted more than 3,000 of these primitive pump-derricks.

The Great Caspian Boom had begun.*

*Other major events of 1873: The Khanate of Khiva signs a peace treaty with Tsar Alexander II, turning the khan’s kingdom into a Russian protectorate; slaves are freed in Puerto Rico; and Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis receive patents for plugging copper rivets in denim pants, a harbinger of America’s dominant fashion over the next 150 years. One of these is clearly more important than the others.

Broken only by the October Revolution and consequent collapse some 70 years later, Baku’s spent over a century pumping a wealth of the world’s oil, relegated especially within the post-Soviet sphere. Privatization saw the pools gobbled by a few international players, and the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline – in which BP, Chevron, and Statoil grab nearly 50 percent of the earnings – stretches some 1,100 miles into the Mediterranean, channeling up to one million barrels of crude per day. (It’s the second-longest pipeline in a former Soviet land, falling only to the blithely named Friendship Pipeline.) Even though Azerbaijan’s not quite as reliant on the fields as it once was, and even though the rising sea level will make the oil harvest marginally tougher, Baku realizes that there’s still gold in ‘em waters.

Of course, the rest of the littoral nations – Russia, Iran, Turkmenistan, and Kazakhstan – realize this as well, which has given Joshua Kucera ample room to detail the growing naval arms race swirling the Caspian:

While the world focuses on the possibility of an Israeli attack on Iran, a little-noticed arms buildup has been taking place to Iran’s north, among the ex-Soviet states bordering the Caspian. Twenty years after the collapse of the Soviet Union created three new states on the sea, their boundaries have still not been delineated. And with rich oil and natural gas fields in those contested waters, the new countries – Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan – are using their newfound riches to protect the source of that wealth.

The arms-growth, as can be imagined, is a bit peculiar. Russia and Kazakhstan – the latter of which is the largest land-locked country in the world – share notably warm relations; Turkmenistan’s displayed little bellicosity during these nascent decades; and Azerbaijan should, as Kucera points out, be preoccupied with maintaining its western front in Nagorno-Karabakh. Iran, meanwhile, sees itself marginally propped through Russia’s unwillingness to cater to any wholesale embargo of Iranian oil, and both have shown strong alliance in maintaining Assad’s goons outside Damascus.*

*This Russo-Iranian relationship is fascinating, and speaks to Putin’s marked, if mendacious, diplomatic skills. The man’s both carrot-and-sticking Tehran, balancing Syrian arms transport with deceptively strong rhetoric as to why Russia’d long prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. The duplicity’s breathtaking, deft, and unpredictable. 

 The underlain thesis of Kucera’s article, mentioned toward the end, is that each nation ratchets its increasing arms potential as a nominally defensive measure. I’ve not yet seen any notion of First-Strike Capability, the kind buttressing US-Soviet Cold War rhetoric, bandied about the Caspian; rather, all weaponized increase is played as a means of counteracting a neighbor’s purportedly offensive move. Everyone’s claiming territorial integrity, and nothing more. They’re just protecting their own.

This is, of course, bunk. Just as in any arena in its near abroad, Russia views the Caspian as its backyard. The former Soviet satellites – while nominally entrusted to Moscow’s protection – will continue to distance themselves from any Russian irredentism: their people won’t have it, and their pockets won’t risk it. And Iran, caught between ever-converging rocks and hard places, cannot afford to let any border go untouched – hello, submarines – especially in light of increased Israeli-Azeri cooperation. The countries are feigning defense, to no one’s deception.

And suddenly, where was once theorized a potential conflict, we may now see the fruits of this arms race. Last month Turkmenistan sent off an exploratory vessel to conduct seismic experiments near the Kyapaz oil and gas field, estimated to hold up to 50 million tons of oil. (Ashgabat refers to it as the Serdar field.) The vessel was picked up by an Azeri patrol boat and promptly rerouted it back to its point of origin. The Turkmenistani Foreign Ministry called the return part of a series of “illegal measures,” accusing Azerbaijan of “provocations.” Baku’s ABC news agency, meanwhile, wrote, “Turkmenistan is clearly ready to unleash war with Azerbaijan.” (Propagandizing is nothing especial in this area, but you gotta admire a bit of the surety here.)

Now, in the latest diplomatic maneuver, Turkmenistan, the hermitic recluse, has taken an interesting step and reached out to third-party moderators. Oil and Gas Minister Kakageldy Abdyllayev said that Ashgabat was planning to take its claims for the oil fields – which also include Guneshli/Omar and Chirag/Osman – to the United Nations’ International Court of Justice. Azerbaijan’s claimed that the two nations had negotiated a moratorium on exploring disputed areas. Turkmenistan’s playing dumb, arguing that no agreement ever existed – and that such exploratory missions are thusly fair game.

Of course, if the surrounding nations can’t even determine whether to term the Caspian a “sea” or a “lake” – though this is a bit understandable, as there are oil-field implications depending on either definition – it’s tough to believe that an agreement between Baku and Ashgabat existed about the Kyapaz/Serdar field. Likewise, it’s tough to imagine that Turkmenistan would purposefully provoke the notably stroppy Azeris, especially if they’d already had an agreement set upon. Still, RFE/RL concurs with Baku, writing that “[i]n 2008, the two countries’ leaders signed an agreement calling for the two Caspian littoral states to refrain from exploratory or extraction activities in the area until the dispute is resolved.”

As it is, it’s unclear as to how the UN will rule on the matter – it’ll likely find a path of least resistance in implementing the EU-proposed trans-Caspian pipeline between the two nations, which could circumvent Russia’s current stranglehold on Caspian oil. That being said, given the UN’s relative impotence in the region, a ruling may have little to no effect on the nations’ encroachment. Russia’s in a sound position as mediator — but it will likely, viz. Syria, deter any quick resolution, all the likelier if it means delaying the potential underwater pipeline. And so the arms race grows, and a cold war simmers.

In a perfect world, this dispute would be the impetus for the five countries to finally delineate and demarcate their Caspian claims. But … that’s not going to happen. Three hundred and sixty-five million barrels not nearly enough to stem this Great Aquatic Game, and a toothless UN resolution is not going to make these two autocracies – or the three others – edge any closer to détente. This mini-Cold War’s been gestating for years. And now, things begin to bubble.