PSCRP-BESA Reports No 41 (March 13, 2024)
Undoubtedly, the Islamic Republic of Iran is rapidly moving into the ranks of countries that play an increasing role in the global geopolitical processes. Recent events in the Middle East region, where the IRI plays one of the defining roles in the military conflict between Israel and Hamas through its proxies, prove this very clearly. This essentially regional power has been consistently strengthening its geopolitical influence, speaking from anti-American and anti-Western positions, coinciding to the maximum extent possible with the position of Russia and, partly, China. Iran has been an active player in Central Asia for more than three decades, arguing for its special role in the development of the post-Soviet states of this sub-region — Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. For Iran, the existence of ties with Central Asian states is a continuation of centuries-old traditions of historical and cultural relations interrupted during the Soviet era.
Security considerations related to the stability of its northern borders are decisive for Iran in its dialog with the region. This implies Tehran’s obligations to contribute in every possible way to ensuring security in the sub-region bordering Iran. It is also important that the Iranian leadership considers a highly diversified dialog with Central Asian countries necessary for Iran to overcome its political and economic isolation, which significantly complicates its positioning in the modern world and entails huge image and political costs. By developing cooperation with the countries of Central Asia, Iran thereby contributes to the intensification of its ties with the countries of Europe and the Asia-Pacific basin.
The significant success achieved by Iran over the past decades in industrial, economic, scientific, cultural and military development, its activity in the work of various regional and global organizations, which has brought the country to the forefront of the international political process, are undeniably attractive for the CA countries. The IRI can rightly be called one of the main actors in the political and economic development of the Middle East. Undoubtedly, all of this contributes to Iran’s attractiveness for its partners. At the same time, Iran is important for Central Asian countries as the main transit transportation route to world markets, which opens the gateway to the Middle East and through Turkey to Europe, as well as to Pakistan, India and other key Asian countries.
Iran’s balanced policy in Central Asia, calibrated over decades, allows it to take maximum advantage of its geostrategic position to transit both its own and Central Asian energy resources. That is why in recent years Iran has placed interaction in the transport sector at the center of its bilateral cooperation plans, as well as promoting the creation of free economic zones wherever possible. Despite all this, it cannot be said that the sides have been able to fully utilize their opportunities to expand mutually beneficial economic cooperation.
Central Asia as a post-Soviet region with a predominantly Muslim population is a high priority of Iran’s highly ideologized foreign policy. This stems from the idea proclaimed in the current Iranian Constitution of 1979 to provide comprehensive support to neighboring and Muslim states. The emergence of new states in the early 1990s provided Iran with a rare historical opportunity to gain a foothold in this new geopolitical space. The tradition of unprecedentedly close historical, cultural and civilizational ties that have existed between Iran and the countries of the Central Asian region for many centuries is very important to Tehran. Iran’s inclusion in the process of integration with Central Asian countries represents a partial overcoming of the isolation into which it has been trapped since the establishment of the Islamic revolutionary regime in the country. Iran also sees the region as a political platform for intensifying relations with Europe and the world’s leading powers such as China and Japan.
Practical measures to implement such a strategy envisaged large-scale economic cooperation, creation of dynamic transport links, opening of embassies and consular offices, all kinds of assistance in joining and gaining full membership in such international structures as the Organization of the Islamic Conference (later renamed the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, OIC), the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO), the Islamic Bank, assistance in the transit of goods, etc. This is useful for the IRI because the enrollment of Central Asian states in the OIC, for example, increases the share of non-Arab states in this organization, which strengthens Iran’s position. Since July 2023, Iran has become a full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which includes all post-Soviet Central Asian countries except Turkmenistan. India, China, Pakistan, Russia and India are also members of the organization.
Meanwhile, Iran has been unable to cooperate productively with the Central Asian states within the OIC framework. In 1997–2000, as the OIC’s duty chairman, Iran used this cadence to whip up anti-Israeli hysteria. In 1997, at the first OIC summit in Tehran, Iran initiated a special resolution on Jerusalem, which stated that in the event of the establishment of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, the OIC headquarters would be immediately relocated there, which was opposed by its Central Asian partners. In 2000, at the OIC summit in Doha, Iran proposed to call out certain Islamic states on having relations with Israel. In doing so, Iran did not take into account the fact that for many years there has been active and quite fruitful cooperation between Israel and OIC member countries from Asia and Africa.
Israel has the most dynamic interaction with the Islamic countries of the CIS. Of course, none of these countries is ready to give up a profitable line of cooperation. Moreover, such key countries of the Islamic world as Egypt and Turkey expressed the opinion at the Doha summit that the OIC is not authorized to exert pressure to break relations with this or that country and the proposed resolution in this regard should only be advisory in nature. Thus, the Iranian version of the resolution was rejected and all CIS member countries of the OIC voted for killing it. After the outbreak of the war in Gaza in October 2023, at the Jeddah summit, Iran demanded that OIC members immediately sever relations with Israel, which did not find support from the Central Asian countries and aggravated their political dialog. In the following months, this demand was repeatedly voiced by Iran’s spiritual leader Ayatollah Khamenei and President Raisi. Thus, a fruitful dialog between Iran and the Central Asian states within the framework of the OIC has failed.
However, there are occasions when Central Asian countries have to resort to the assistance of Iran as a country that has a certain weight and authority in the OIC. Thus, the Republic of Kazakhstan, intending to assume rotating chairmanship of this organization in 2011, sought Iran’s support in this matter : “In carrying out this important mission, we count on the support of Iran, an influential Islamic state.”
The rise to power of the pragmatic wing of Iran’s leadership at the turn of 1980-1990s meant a change in the IRI’s foreign policy course, aimed henceforth at comprehensive political dialog instead of violent ideological export. The revolutionary-romantic Islamic rhetoric of the first post-revolutionary decade could hardly be adequately perceived in the post-Soviet space. In conducting political dialog with Central Asian countries, Iran does not appeal directly to religion as an integrating factor, leaving it on the outskirts. “Today, Tehran views the spread of revolutionary Islam beyond its borders as a potential source of destabilization for the IRI itself — both in terms of security and economy.” That is why Iran is interested in political and economic stability in the neighboring region, which can serve as a guarantee of ethnic security for the multi-ethnic IRI. The forcible introduction of revolutionary Islam into the countries of the Central Asian region, where it could have strengthened the positions of the rising Islamic opposition, was capable of radically destabilizing the situation there, thus blocking the development of political and economic dialogue with Tehran. Of course, Iran tried to take this into account when building its policy in Central Asia. We will examine the actualities of this process on the example of three of the five Central Asian states in a separate article.
Dr. Vladimir Mesamed, Israeli orientalist, expert on Iran and Central Asia, lecturer at the Institute of Asian and African Studies at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, political commentator.