Armenia-Iran pipeline stirring trouble for Turkey and Azerbaijan
Though the Armenians lost the Karabah region to Turkey and Azerbaijan, they made a sweet deal with Iran to build a pipeline between the two countries. Brad Johnson continues his analysis of the dramatic events going on in the Middle East.
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brad johnson here for americans for
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intelligence reform intel reform.org it
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is 25 february
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2021 and an interesting update uh in
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essence to
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what was the uh armenian and azerbaijani
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war which we covered a great deal and
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talked about a great deal
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and analyzed the uh basis for that war
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was a a
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energy pipeline for oil and gas and and
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products of that nature
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that area of karabaw that was
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taken back by the azerbaijanis with
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turkish backing
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was that area where the pipeline was
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supposed to go through
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once that area was contained you know
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everybody
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on the azerbaijani said side said fine
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good that we achieved what we wanted
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and you know armenia basically lost that
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war
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and uh but an interesting development
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out of all of that
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now azerbaijan is it they they are oil
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producing and they are
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uh trying to control where this pipeline
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goal
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goes for economic interest and turkey’s
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very interested in being on the
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receiving end of these
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energy supplies since they do not have
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any
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uh of oil and gas production of their
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own of any consequence so that’s why
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they’re pushing in a lot of areas to
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gain control
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of these economic resources and they’re
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quite open in discussing these sorts of
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things so it’s not
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really in question as to what’s going on
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or why now the development of out of all
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of this is
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that is not good for iran and now
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armenia is essentially surrounded by
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hostile or kind of neutral not friendly
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not helpful countries
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and the only one that they really can do
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business with is iran
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so all the trucking and everything now
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trucking is
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really important for economic goods
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coming in if you had to fly in
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you know all of your uh you know
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industrial goods that you don’t produce
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locally and
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armenia is a small country uh if you had
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to fly them in it would be
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prohibitively expensive so trucking is
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very important and the only trucking
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route in and out of armenia is through
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iran so very important
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now the iranian foreign minister
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javad zarif if i butcher the name
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forgive me
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uh had just made a regional uh tour in
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that area talking to countries armenia
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azerbaijan
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georgia the republic of georgia not the
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state of georgia
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uh tibilisi that is the capital russia
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and turkey
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now interesting that they did all of
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this because what they’re trying to do
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is dust off an old rail line that was
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from the soviet union days
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from armenia that goes through iran not
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azerbaijan
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and so what they’re trying to do is dust
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that off make the repairs to it
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and push to have it used for this
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pipeline where the gas and oil
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products of that nature can go which
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would take this
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out of the hands of azerbaijan
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completely so of course azerbaijan is
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pitching a fit over that
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and iran is pushing this and absolutely
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armenia
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is going to want this this is way better
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for armenia way better for iran
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interesting bedfellows there and now
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what does russia do uh
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russia in many ways has become a uh
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you know is starting to have problems
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with turkey they’re frenemies there are
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a lot of areas of cooperation
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but there’s some very serious problems
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between the two countries too
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turkey is claiming uh certain areas of
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the crimea
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as belonging to them which has been
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annexed
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by russia away from ukraine all that is
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still working its way
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out but there is serious competition
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there also
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turkey the bosphorus which connects the
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black sea
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down through the bosphorus and
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eventually into the adriatic and the
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mediterranean and out into the atlantic
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and those are warm ports that are
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year-round ports for russia
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where they can even in winter get their
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navy out into the oceans into the
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atlantic and
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wherever they need to that’s very
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important to russia
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and turks have repeatedly threatened to
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close the bosphorus straits which are
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are narrow but runs through turkish
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territory it’s
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it’s open water but through turkish
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territory they’ve often threatened to
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close that so
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there’s some areas of contention so it’s
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going to be very interesting to see
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what russia does with this if russia
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throws its backing into this
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and cooperates with armenia who is an
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ally
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and iran which is again sort of a
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frenemy
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uh but if they throw their lot into that
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path
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uh it would require more capital
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investment but would take that
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pipeline out under from under the direct
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control of azerbaijan
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and subsequently turkey azerbaijan has
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become something of a client state maybe
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that’s too overly overstated
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but very close allies at a minimum
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with turkey so azerbaijan and turkey it
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would take that pipeline out of their
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control
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put it more under the control of russia
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because they they
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they essentially have a client state in
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armenia as well
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so very interesting development this is
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going to be very interesting to see how
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this develops
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and it’s going to it’s going to create
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ramifications and future lines of
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demarcation if you will
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on how the relationship between russia
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and turkey unfolds and what the problems
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might be in the future
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with them or or not so it’s going to be
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a very interesting indicator to see how
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this unfolds
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so
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you
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Brad Johnson retired as a Senior Operations Officer and Chief of Station with the Central Intelligence Agency’s Directorate of Operations. Having served domestically and abroad, many assignments included areas of armed conflict. He served overseas in direct support of the War Against Terrorism and he took multiple assignments overseas as Chief of Station. A certified senior expert in counterintelligence, surveillance and surveillance detection, his proven expertise in dangerous operational environments included the highest level of training available in the USG and globally. His tradecraft expertise was honed in dangerous, difficult, and restrictive operational environments. Brad is an enrolled member of The Cherokee Nation, a Federally Recognized Tribe.
