@@ CIA & Mosad planners give support to separatists @@
Arash
I have been watching these two parasites for a few years now. They are two
of the most active Mosad planners on Iran. They use every possible tactics
to attack Iran.
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National Iranian American Council
April 10, 2003
The approximately fifty members of the audience represented, among others,
Pentagon officials, policy makers from the New American Century, RAND,
Senator Brownback's office, and foreign embassy personnel.
AZERI SEPARATIST MEETS POLICY MAKERS IN WASHINGTON
Washington DC - The Central Asia-Caucuses Institute at the Johns Hopkins
University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) presented a panel
discussion entitled "Iran, Iranian-Azerbaijan, and Azerbaijan after the
Iraq-Iran War," on Wednesday evening. The panel included former Azerbaijani
Ambassador to Iran - Nasib Nassibli, Chief of the Azerbaijani Service of
Voice of America - Dr. Hassan Javadi, and former linguistics professor of
the University of Tabriz - Dr. Mahmud Ali Chehregani.
Nassibli, the first speaker of the evening, focused on the Azerbaijani
question in Iran, as well as Iran-Azerbaijan relations, referring to the
Republic of Azerbaijan as Northern Azerbaijan and the province of Azerbaijan
in Iran as Southern Azerbaijan. His discussion quickly turned to Azeri
separatism from Iran.
Nassibli estimated the Azeri population in Iran to be between 25 and 30
million, i.e. forty percent of Iran's population and nearly fifty percent of
Tehran's population. Nassibli prefaced his statistics with the warning that
it was problematic pinpointing the population due to the fact that there had
not been an effective census in the country for quite a while.
Nassibli illustrated how "Southern" Azerbaijan experienced three movements
for democracy in the 20th century. The movements were all systematically
squashed by the Soviet Union and Tehran. Iran always feared the Soviet
Union according to Nassibili, and if there was an independence movement in
Azerbaijan province, or even a movement for cultural autonomy, then this
threatened Tehran. In one instant, Nassibli argued that at the time of the
Iranian Revolution Khomeini squashed an Azeri uprising for autonomy because
he feared the Soviet Union would invade Iran as it had done to Afghanistan
in 1980. But, Nassibli was quick to remind the audience that Azerbaijanis
in the province of Azerbaijan had not wanted to unify with the Soviet Union.
The message was that the Azeris at the time of the Iranian revolution were
not quick to abandon Tehran to serve the interests of Moscow.
Nassibli's final message included an anecdote of his meeting with Reza
Pahlavi who had given Nassibli a copy of his book. According to Nassibli,
Pahlavi's book mentioned that Persians were the minority in Iran. (NIAC has
not been able to confirm this claim).
Dr. Hassan Javadi started his comments somewhat in response to Nassibli's
presentation, addressing the "so-called movement" of Azerbaijan. Having been
born and raised in Tabriz, Javadi said he "really [doesn't] regard [him]self
as a separatist, nor wanted to be united with Northern Azerbaijan. In
Javadi's mind, Azeri separatists constituted a "fringe group." He
acknowledged that most Azeris want cultural autonomy, but he was clear to
note that a majority did not favor "separation."
Javadi then turned his attention to the original message regarding
Azerbaijani literature and language. After the Shah left Iran in 1979, and
his oppressive censorship of non-Persian publications gave way, Azeri
publications came forth in droves especially during the years of 1979 and
1980, according to Javadi. In July 1979, there were 222 publications in
Iran, while Iranian expatriates published 167 newspapers outside of the
country. An upshot of journals also appeared, numbering nearly 55,
according to Javadi.
Though Azerbaijani literature never flourished in Iran like Persian texts,
Azerbaijani poetry did become a symbol of national importance. According to
Kayhan, an Iranian publishing house, a recent tally of Iranian publications
totaled 4000 in one year. Of these 4000 publications one-tenth, or 400,
were written in Azeri.
Javadi, in contrast to Nassibli, seemingly wanted to signify that literature
and language were greater unifying subjects to Azeris than Azerbaijani
politics. In fact, when Khatami became president, Azeris experienced a boon
to their cultural autonomy, according to Javadi. Though Khatami did not
specifically grant any new rights to Azeris, his more moderate presence
allowed the expansion of cultural groups in Azerbaijan which provided Azeris
with an organized forum for cultural preservation, Javadi claimed.
Javadi was not entirely dismissive of the Azeri separatist question. He
noted that despite the existence of Azerbaijani fringe groups the vast
majority of Azeris felt fully a part of Iran. He explained how the
participation of Azeris in the Iraq-Iran war boosted a sense of Iranian
nationalism. The majority of Azeris are so integrated and so spread through
Iran that unification with Northern Azerbaijan would practically be very
difficult, Javadi explained. Furthermore, Javadi noted that the economic
disparity between Azerbaijanis in the two countries was too much of an
impediment for unification. Lastly, nearly 100 years of separation between
two Azerbaijans had created too much of a difference. Though Javadi had
heard the separatist rumblings, he firmly believed that if a foreign entity
attacked Iran, Azeris would take up arms like they did against Iraq and
fight for their home: Iran.
The third speaker, Dr. Chehregani was elected to the Iranian Majlis in 1996.
Soon thereafter, the government annulled his election and arrested him.
Chehregani was re-arrested in 1999 and prohibited from running in 2000 as a
result of his arrest. Imprisoned at a time when he had diabetes and heart
disease, Chehregani was freed from jail and allowed to leave Iran thanks to
the help of Senator Sam Brownback, the sponsor of Senate Resolution 140.
(See NIAC articles on Resolution 140, 82, and 59).
Chehregani, speaking Azeri and accompanied by a translator, was the most
controversial speaker of the night. He estimated the Azeri population in
Iran to be around thirty-five million, and the Persian population only
twenty million. These figures broke the crowd into a bit of incredulousness
with scrunched faces and increased commotion.
Though the figures were startling, what was more startling was the different
statistics each presenter possessed. In previous speaking occasions in the
US, Chehregani had answered a reporter's question to his statistics by
stating that the Iranian government skewed the population statistics to make
the Persians appear to be the majority while reducing the Azeri population
to merely a quarter of the population. By contrast, the CIA World Fact
Book, an institution as far related from the Iranian government as can be
imagined, places the Persian population at 51 percent, and the Azeri
population at 24 percent
According to Chehregani, Turkish dynasties that ruled over Iran during their
1000-year reign did not harm even one ethnic group. In contrast, Chehregani
argued that the Pahlavi dynasty initiated a wave of violence against the
identity of Azeris. Chehregani passionately described how the Pahlavi
dynasty had distorted the Azeri history, and assaulted the Azeri language.
In regards to the Iranian province of Azerbaijan and the Republic of
Azerbaijan, Chehregani argued that "our Persian enemies separated us in 1830
and 1838." Chehregani predicted that the Iranian regime, which had "lost
all its legitimacy," will collapse in "three to five years" and that
currently there is a great "revival of Azeri nationalism in Iran."
The controversy continued during the question and answer period. One
audience member was simply stunned at Chehregani's statistics and called
into question his claim of widespread support for an independent Azerbaijan.
Another audience member tried to clarify Chehregani's view on the future of
Iran. Chehregani once again forecasted that the theocracy in Iran will
collapse in three to five years and that no force could keep Iran as a
unified entity once the regime falls.
Javadi brought to light the fact that other movements, democratic movements,
were very strong in Iran and that taking the big picture into account, one
can see that the largest movement in Iran was a democratic movement - one
that must be indigenous to the country.
Not surprisingly, Chehregani received the last word of the evening. The
Azeri separatist boldly stated that Azeris do not celebrate Iranian holidays
and festivals, and that Azeris experience widespread discrimination in Iran,
unless they deny their Azeri identity. This comment was made in retort to
Javadi's claim that he, as an Azeri, never had faced discrimination in Iran
and that he was able to have a very successful career in Tehran.
Chehregani explained to curious policy makers that his objective was to
establish democracy in a separate and unified Azerbaijan. Furthermore,
Chehregani stated that Iran would soon suffer the same fate as the Balkan
countries of Europe, resulting in the disintegration of Iran into several
separate countries based entirely on ethnicity.
http://www.niacouncil.org/pressreleases/press074.asp
========================================
Brenda Shaffer
International Security Program; Strengthening Democratic Institutions
Project
Research Director, Caspian Studies Program
Office: LP20
Telephone: (617) 496-1394
Email: brenda_...@harvard.edu
She received her Ph.D from Tel-Aviv University for her work on "The
Formation of Azerbaijani Collective Identity: in Light of the Islamic
Revolution in Iran and the Soviet Breakup." Dr. Shaffer has worked for a
number of years as a researcher and policy analyst for the Government of
Israel, and reads a number of languages, including Turkish, Russian,
Azerbaijani, and Hebrew.
Brenda teaches courses in the International Relations Department of Hebrew
University of Jerusalem, and has served in the Israel Defense Forces.
Efraim Inbar
BESA Director
Telephone: (9723) 531-8959 and (9723) 531-7335
Email: inb...@mail.biu.ac.il
Born in Romania (1947), educated at the Hebrew University (B.A. in Political
Science and English Literature) and at the University of Chicago (M.A. and
Ph.D. in Political Science), Efraim Inbar is a Professor in Political
Studies at Bar-Ilan University and the Director of its Begin-Sadat (BESA)
Center for Strategic Studies. He served as visiting professor at Georgetown
University (1991-92) and visiting scholar at the Woodrow Wilson
International Center for Scholars (1996). Prof. Inbar has been appointed as
a Manfred Warner NATO Fellow (1998) and was a visiting Fellow at the
(London) International Institute for Strategic Studies (2000). He is also
the recipient of the Onassis Fellowship (2003). He often lectures at
institutions such as RAND, Council of Foreign Relations, Harvard, MIT,
Columbia and Yale Universities.
Prof. Inbar served in the Israel Defense Force (IDF) as a paratrooper, and
he is presently posted (in reserve) at the IDF College of Staff and Command.
He was a member of the Political Strategic Committee of the National
Planning Council and the Chair of the Committee for the National Security
Curriculum at the Ministry of Education. He is currently a member of the
Board of Directors of The Yizhak Rabin Center for Israel Studies. Prof.
Inbar is widely quoted in the Israeli and international press.
http://www.biu.ac.il/SOC/besa/efraim_inbar.html
http://www.biu.ac.il/SOC/besa/bulletin/no6art1.htm
http://www.azembassy.com/archive/2002/media/cjn29apr02.htm