Iran-Russia relations-Ups And Downs Till Today

The relations between Russia and Iran are not new. The relations between the two countries started in the year 1592.

At that time, the place which we today call as Iran was known as Persia.

In the year 1592 Iran was ruled by Safavids. So the story between these two actors started from there.

After 1935 the name got changed from Persia and became Iran. In different times of history some times the two countries enjoyed good relations and some times they became worst rivals.

The two nations are important for each other because they are geographically linked to each other.

Critics believe that if the two nations will not enjoy good relations then that will have negative impacts on the whole region.

The diplomatic ties between Russia and Iran started professionally for the first time when the first Persian Ambassador was sent to Russia, his name was Mirza Abolhassan Khan Ilchi Kabir.

That event took place when Qajarid government was in total control of Persia.

That was the time of colonialism and imperialism…and strong European powers were competing for the South and Southeastern portion of Persia, and wanted to get hold of Persian Gulf.

Russia at that time was also a big power and it was observing all the developments which were going on in the South and Southeastern part of Persia.

So Russia started creating problems for Persia in the northern parts and also started taking interests in the Southern parts.

Qajarid government was not really strong to stop the Russians from its imperialistic designs. It was a weak government and the Russians made Fath Ali Shah to sign the notorious treaty “treaty of Gulistan” in 1813 and it was followed by another treaty, which was called as “treaty of Turkmenchay”…and as a result of those two treaties Persia lost its strategically important northern part to Russia.

From there onwards the Russians started advancing towards South of Persia.

In a very short span of next 10 years, as a result of few unexpected developments in Persia, which made it really weak…it completely lost its influence in Central Asia…and the Russia with all its bad intentions could see Central Asia as an easy prey.

Russia continued its imperialistic intentions and focused towards Central Asia.

In the next 50 years the whole Central Asia became the part of Imperial Russia. The leaders of Imperial Russia forced the Qajarid government in the 1870’s to sign a treaty, which was called as the “treaty of Akhal”, and as a result of that treaty Persia had to surrender “Khwarazm” to the Imperial Russia.

By the end of 19th Century Persia became so weak…and Russians were so involved in the domestic matters of Persia that Tehran couldn’t take any important decision without the approval of Anglo-Russian consulates.

If Russians were not consulted before taking important decisions or if Persians hurt the Russians interests…then the Russians often behaved aggressively, examples are the events of Russian shelling of Mashad’s Goharshad Mosque in 1911 and the shelling of the Persian National Assembly by the Russian Colonel V. Liakhov…and these events heated the anti-Russian sentiments in Persians.

Persians were so annoyed from the Russian behavior towards them that they were ready to take action against the Russian government.

Soon the constitutionalist movement of Gilan started…and the confrontation between the Iranian rebels and the Russian troops was about to start, but got disrupted because of the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 which led to the regime change in Moscow.

The Soviet involvement in Persia continued, initially the Soviets established a short lived “Persian Socialist Soviet Republic” in 1920 and that was followed by another effort when they created the “Republic of Mahabad” and that was considered to be the last effort by the Soviets to establish a Communist Republic in Iran.

In 1941 during the Second World War, the forces of Stalin and Churchill jointly invaded Iran, because they thought that Shah of Iran had a back hand deal with the Nazi’s.

After the end of Second World War, Cold war started between the two war blocs. One was headed by U.S. and the other was headed by U.S.S.R. In the post World War era Iran acted as a client state of U.S. and thus American dominance in Iran’s political arena was quite explicit.

Americans tried hard to erase the communist elements from Iran and the Iranian government behaved accordingly. Soviets did not like these developments.

After the Islamic revolution of 1979 Soviets expected that Iranians would cooperate with them, but when Iranian leadership called the Soviets “Satan” the Soviets felt humiliated.

When Iran-Iraq war started in 1980, then Soviets punished Iranians by supporting Saddam Hussein…and Soviets supplied Saddam with large amount of ammunition which he used against Khomeini’s Iran.

After the collapse of U.S.S.R in December 1991, there was a U-turn in Iran-Russia relations. Diplomatic, commercial relations increased and Iran also started purchasing weapons from Russia.

Since the collapse of U.S.S.R till today Iran-Russia friendship has been working really well.

In 2005, statistics say that Russia became the 7th largest trading partner of Iran, with 5.33% of all exports to Iran that came from Russia and the trade relations between the two countries have exceeded beyond U.S. $1 Billion.

In the region Russia and Iran have common interests and both are interested in limiting the political influence of U.S….both are anti-U.S. , both suffered from the policies of U.S. in the past, so both are in a position today to support each other so there is a natural alliance between these two actors. So because of this natural alliance Iran’s officials are seen speaking passionately in the meetings of Shanghai Cooperation Organization and is working closely with Russia and because of sanctions from the west on Iran…today Iran’s Air force and civilian air fleet is increasingly becoming Russian built.

These days the relations between Russia and Iran have again started loosing the real grip. Moscow has to cooperate with the western world because of its commercial interests…and since the west has declared Iran a culprit state, so Russia is quite confused in this situation.

At one place it has got to satisfy its western partners and on the other side it has to cooperate with Iran. Iran has also expressed its unhappiness with the repeated delays by Russia in finishing the “Bushehr” Reactor project, as well as the Russia’s stance in the Caspian Sea dispute.