How Iran perceives Turkey’s rise in the South Caucasus

Abstract

As the geopolitical landscape of the South Caucasus continues to evolve, multiple divergent interests are bringing new dynamics into the Iran-Turkey relations. This article explores Iran’s changing perceptions concerning the South Caucasus in general and Turkey’s assertive geopolitical activism in the region, in particular. The authors argue that, given Turkey’s increasing influence in the South Caucasus and Iran’s decreasing footprint in the region, the current geopolitical and geo-economic trends are likely to bring more conflict into the Iran-Turkey regional rivalry. Tehran is apprehensive of several key insecurities stemming from Ankara’s growing activism in the South Caucasus. Apart from historical disagreements between Iran and Turkey over the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict, the East-West transit corridors and pan-Turkism in a bigger picture, Tehran perceives the underlying developments in the region as part of the West’s “geopolitical plot” of containing Iran, in which Turkey plays a strategic role. Consequently, the South Caucasus is increasingly becoming an additional source of regional confrontation between Iran and Turkey.