Page 2 of 2 A new crisis in Russia-Iran
relations By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
no secret about the implications of
this deal in harming Russia's interests.
As neighbors who share only maritime
borders in the Caspian Sea, Russia and Iran are
also at odds over the division of the water and
its resources. Marathon negotiations among the
littoral states over a new legal regime for the
Caspian have been deadlocked for many years and,
certainly, the worsening political
climate due to the nuclear
rift will further complicate this matter.
President Vladimir Putin has not hesitated
in flexing Russia's naval might in the Caspian to
coerce the Iranians on the contested issue of
Caspian ownership and, with alarming signs of a
full-fledged crisis in Iran-Russia relations, he
(and his successor) may be inclined to make more
use of that leverage.
A pertinent question
is whether or not Russia's still-formidable pool
of shared interests with Iran, including the
containment of the United States' unipolar
hegemony and hopes for a world gas cartel, will
act as deterrents against the current
deterioration of relations above-mentioned.
After all, Russia's security calculus
continues to count on Iran in its global policy,
and if Russia is not careful, it may lose what it
has taken for granted for a long time, that is,
Iran's role in its grand scheme of things. Moscow
is clearly not thrilled about the latest news from
Baghdad regarding Iran-US talks and the formation
of a joint panel on Iraq's security, which
portends broader US-Iran security dialogue.
Until now, the Iranians have blamed
Washington for obstructing talks over Tehran's
nuclear program, and this position has been
reiterated by Hassan Rowhani, Iran's former chief
negotiator during the presidency of Mohammad
Khatami, in his latest press interview. Yet that
might change in light of alarming signs of
Russia's thinly veiled ambiguities on the concrete
proposals to resolve the nuclear standoff.
Concerning the latter, Larijani has told
the foreign press that the "time-out" proposal by
International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohammad
ElBaradei "is not the same as a suspension
demand". He is thus hinting that Iran is still
seriously considering this proposal as it might be
a way around Tehran's steadfast insistence that it
will not suspend its nuclear program.
Both Larijani and Rowhani have said that
US-Iran dialogue on Iraq can improve the climate
over the nuclear talks, with Larijani putting the
accent on the need for a "long-term vision" by
Western and other governments insisting on a
suspension of Iran's nuclear enrichment program.
"They do not say what is the next step. If
Iran suspends, then what? Nothing is clear,"
Larijani has rightly complained. Unfortunately,
the US has rejected the offer by Iranian Foreign
Minister Manouchehr Mottaki for "higher-level"
talks between the US and Iran, claiming the time
is not ripe. But if the US is really interested in
a serious breakthrough in the nuclear row with
Iran, it will have to set aside its misgivings and
internal bickerings and embrace Mottaki's
suggestion. This is in light of Larijani's
insistence that Iran "has not rejected" the
incentive package that was offered to Iran by the
"five plus one" (the United Nations Security
Council's permanent five - the US, Russia, China,
France and the United Kingdom - plus Germany). [2]
In conclusion, it is curious that just as
the US and Iran are breaking some significant ice
in their long-frozen relations, new ice is
gathering around the ship of Iran-Russia
diplomacy. That need not be so, and the two issues
are not mutually exclusive. However, if Russia
persists with its shenanigans over Bushehr, which
have soured the prospects for Russia-Iran
cooperation on not only nuclear but also a whole
array of other, eg regional and security, issues,
then there is no alternative to the word "crisis"
in describing the overall state of relations
between the two countries. Notes 1. For more on this, see Afrasiabi, et al, Iran needs
nuclear power, International Herald
Tribune, October 14, 2003. 2. For more on the
incentive package, see Abbas Maleki and Afrasiabi,
Iran's diplomacy
in action, San Francisco Chronicle,
August 25, 2006.
Kaveh L
Afrasiabi, PhD, is the author of After
Khomeini: New Directions in Iran's Foreign Policy
(Westview Press) and co-author of "Negotiating
Iran's Nuclear Populism", Brown Journal of World
Affairs, Volume XII, Issue 2, Summer 2005, with
Mustafa Kibaroglu. He also wrote "Keeping Iran's
nuclear potential latent", Harvard International
Review, and is author of Iran's Nuclear
Program: Debating Facts Versus Fiction.
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