Subject: Iran Influence in Azerbaijan May Unsettle Oil Investments - Bloomberg
From: "Michael Andrews" <[email-masked]>
To: "Thad Brown" <[email-masked]>, "Curt Hastings" <[email-masked]>, "Ronnie Mainieri" <[email-masked]>, "Hunter Biden" <[email-masked]>, "Eric Schwerin" <[email-masked]>, "Chris Heinz" <[email-masked]>, "Devon Archer" <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2011 20:35:20 -0400

I suspect this impacts Chevron and I will do more checking prior to  
any meeting.

Iran Influence in Azerbaijan May Unsettle Oil Investments (1)
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By Zulfugar Agayev and Henry Meyer

March 31 (Bloomberg) -- Hajiaga Nuri, an elder in an impoverished  
village north of Azerbaijan’s capital of Baku, is part of the region’s  
first Islamic push against a pro-Western leader after similar regimes  
were ousted in the Middle East.

Nuri, 59, plans to join a march against the government next month led  
by a banned Islamic party that Azeri authorities say has Iranian  
links. The party’s stated goal: to fight against the regime of  
President Ilham Aliyev, a U.S. ally they accuse of suppressing  
Muslims. In Tunisia and Egypt, by contrast, demonstrators mostly  
called for secular democracy.

“I want to live only under Islamic law,” Nuri said as women wearing  
black headscarves and bearded men walked by walls in Nardaran bearing  
religious inscriptions. The Shiite theocracy of neighboring Iran is  
“friendly and brotherly,” he added.

Azerbaijan’s energy transit routes to Europe bypass Russia, making the  
former Soviet satellite a crucial partner for the West and oil  
companies such as the U.K.’sBP Plc. Azeri officials accuse Iran of  
trying to stir up Islamic protests to weaken Aliyev, 49.

That in turn would make the country less safe for U.S. and European  
investment, said Theodore Karasik, director of research at the Dubai- 
based Institute for Near East and Gulf Analysis.

“Iran isn’t seeking to overthrow Aliyev but to destabilize the  
situation in the country so that it scares away Western investors,”  
Karasik said.

Iranian Television

Azeri-language programs of Iran’s Sahar 1 television channel, beamed  
into Azerbaijan over official protests, criticize the government’s  
domestic and foreign policies and say that Western companies are  
plundering the country’s oil riches. Iran’s Shiite religion is shared  
by two-thirds of the 9-million population in Azerbaijan; almost a  
quarter of Iran’s 75 million people are ethnic Azeri.

“The efforts to instigate unrest here are contrary to the agreement  
that Azerbaijan and Iran signed not to act against each other’s  
interests,” Ali Hasanov, an aide to the Azeri president, said in a  
March 28 phone interview.

Iranian Ambassador Mohammad Baqer Bahrami attended the March 18  
funeral in Nardaran of the former leader of the Islamic Party of  
Azerbaijan, Haji Alikram Aliyev, who isn’t related to the president.

‘General Instability’

“While Iran ultimately might be interested in the overthrow of the  
government in Baku, as it is with certain Middle Eastern regimes, it  
is more realistically aiming for general instability in Azerbaijan,”  
Austin, Texas-based intelligence-consulting group Stratfor said in a  
research note earlier this month.

Companies led by London-based BP have invested more than $31 billion  
in Azerbaijan’s oil and gas fields since the 1991 Soviet collapse.  
Azerbaijan can pump as much as 1.2 million barrels of oil a day to  
Turkey through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, a project funded in  
part by Western governments to allow Caspian energy supplies to  
circumvent Russia.

The country may also be a major source of natural gas for the European  
Union-backed 7.9 billion-euro ($11-billion) Nabucco pipeline to be  
built across Turkey. Tamam Bayatli, a BP spokeswoman in Azerbaijan,  
said the company doesn’t comment on political issues.

Street Protests

The concern in Azerbaijan comes after street protests helped overthrow  
Tunisian leader Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in January. Egyptian President  
Hosni Mubarakstepped down after 30 years about a month later following  
a popular uprising.

In Bahrain, which is ruled by a Sunni royal family and has a Shiite  
majority, neighboring Gulf allies have sent troops to shore up the  
government on the grounds that Iran was influencing the opposition.

King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa on March 21 said Bahrain had foiled “an  
external plot” to subvert security and stability. The former head of  
the U.A.E. air force, Major General Khaled Bu-Ainnain, a day later  
described the unrest as a “Shiite plot supported by Iran.”

Aliyev, who took over from his father in 2003, is already facing  
separate protests led by secular pro-democracy opponents, who staged  
several demonstrations in early March demanding the president’s  
resignation. Youth activists who have launched a campaign on the  
Facebook Inc. social-networking website plan to hold nationwide  
protests on April 2 along with supporters of secular opposition parties.

Nothing to Lose?

State media in Iran has blamed “anti-religious” policies by Aliyev,  
such as banning Islamic headscarves at schools, for causing the  
Islamic unrest.

“The people want to rise up. The devout have nothing to lose,” said  
the Islamic Party’s acting head, Elchin Manafov. “We are ready to be  
martyred for God, for our country and people, and for the protection  
of our values.”

At least 10,000 people will take part in an April 8 demonstration in  
Azadliq (Freedom) Square if government permission for the rally is  
granted, he said.

Azeri Interior Minister Ramil Usubov vowed to crack down on  
unsanctioned protests as the secular opposition plans a major  
demonstration in the capital on April 2, in defiance of a police ban,  
to demand President Aliyev’s resignation.

“No one should have any doubt that moves to undermine stability and  
peace in the country will be resolutely thwarted,” Usubov said in  
comments broadcast on state television today.

Iranian Financing

The Iranian government appears to be financing the Islamic Party,  
Nasib Nasibli, a former Azeri ambassador to Iran, said in a March 24  
interview. “Iran doesn’t want to see a democratic, pro-Western system  
in Azerbaijan, it wants to see pro-Iranian Islamists in charge here,”  
he said.

The leader of the party, Movsum Samadov, was arrested in January after  
calling for the overthrow of the government and harshly criticizing  
the headscarf ban. The rule provoked demonstrations after it was  
introduced by the Education Ministry in December.

Manafov, a soft-spoken, bearded man in his thirties, dismissed  
allegations that his party has close ties with Iran, saying that  
Iranians provide it only with “moral” support.

Aliyev turned down an invitation from Iranian counterpart Mahmoud  
Ahmadinejad to visit Tehran on March 27 to join Nowruz holiday  
celebrations, Iran’s state-run Fars news service reported March 23.  
Aliyev’s office declined comment.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast wasn’t available  
to comment when called at his office and cell phone.

In Nardaran, the scene of regular protests over the past decade in  
which demonstrators have burned U.S., British and Israeli flags,  
residents call every day into Iran’s Sahar 1 TV.

Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, “international imperialism has been  
unable to turn Iran from its path,” said Nuri, the village elder.

To contact the reporters on this story: Zulfugar Agayev in Baku via  
the Moscow newsroom at ; Henry Meyer in Moscow at [email-masked].

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Hellmuth Tromm [email-masked] 
  Willy Morris at [email-masked]

Last Updated: March 31, 2011 13:16 ED