“Azerbaijan seems to be trying to enter a race with Armenia in the context of the development of relations with Iran,” said the expert in Iranian studies
There are reports in the media that Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev is planning to visit Iran in May and Russia in March. In this regard, the expert in Iranian studies Vardan Voskanyan noted that although there is still no clear information about the visits, however, Aliyev’s strive to meet especially with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is conditioned by the following circumstance: he is trying therewith to solve the “problem of not lagging behind” the Republic of Armenia.” “The Azerbaijani propaganda machine is regularly delivering its population that they are much ahead of the Azerbaijan-Iran relations while the reality is different,” noted Vardan Voskanyan in an interview with us.
In his estimation, Azerbaijan seems to be trying to enter a race with Armenia in the context of the development of relations with Iran, “This is to some extent positive because it turns out that we are dictating the agenda to Azerbaijan. Iran is a regional superpower with which Armenia’s special relationship with Iran generate from interests of Iran and our.” Vardan Voskanyan reminded that especially in the recent period, Aliyev with his reckless actions managed to record quite a big step backward in seeming improvement of relations with Iran. The expert in Iranian studies also addressed the information that during the mentioned visits it is planned to discuss the issues of organizing an Iran-Azerbaijan-Russia new tripartite summit.
We inquired how realistic is the “restart” of such format. “We must follow each process going on in Azerbaijan but we should not make it a direct agenda item. If you can recall, there were also groundless concerns after Iran-Azerbaijan-Russia tripartite meeting in Baku in August 2016 that Russia, Iran and Azerbaijan are forming a possible alliance which was a failure. The word “restart” is mentioned. In this case, even if there is a need for “restart”, a false start” took place,” noted Vardan Voskanyan.
