11-17-2007, 05:32 AM
|
 |
Administrator
|
|
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Philadelphia
Gender: 
Posts: 8,960
Thanks: 216
Thanked 2,157 Times in 1,610 Posts
|
|
Outside View: Azerbaijan's Iran problem?
Outside View: Azerbaijan's Iran problem?
Quote:
VIENNA, Nov. 15 (UPI) -- Azerbaijanis, among the most secular people in the Muslim world, have long self-confidently joked that even Osama bin Laden could not put a chador on an Azerbaijani woman. But recent events suggest that Baku may now face three potentially serious ethno-religious challenges.
First, at the end of October the Azerbaijani security services broke up what they said was a plot by Islamic extremists to blow up the U.S. and other Western embassies, the latest and far and away the most dramatic indication that radical Muslims have gained at least a small foothold there.
Some analysts downplayed this event, arguing that Baku had blown the event out of proportion either to solidify its ties with Washington or to justify the imposition of tighter controls over the population.
But others pointed out that Wahhabi ideas and Salafist Islam have long infected Azerbaijani society. The U.S. State Department on Oct. 29 confirmed the report, and both the U.S. and British embassies in the Azerbaijani capital cut back on their operations in order to enhance security.
One consequence of these failed attacks was that the Baku authorities reportedly directed booksellers in the Azerbaijani capital to remove from their shelves any book that might have an explicitly Islamist message, including a few that some Muslims would dispute as falling into that category.
Second, last week both the Iranian authorities and the U.S. Embassy in Baku took steps that underscore and possibly heighten the importance and influence of Nakhichevan, the non-contiguous portion of Azerbaijan from which much of Baku's political elite springs and in which Shiite influence is especially strong.
Last week officials announced the opening of bus service between Baku and Nakhichevan via Iran. According to a Mediaforum.az report, operators are selling tickets at the airport rather than at the bus station, passengers must have foreign passports, and the Iranian government is providing transit visas.
Residents of Nakhichevan will get such visas at no cost, while those who are residents of Azerbaijan proper will get them for 20 manats (approximately $24). The cost of a one-way ticket is 20 manats, the news service said, and on the first day the bus line operators sold 34 tickets.
The same day -- but not by bus -- the U.S. ambassador to Azerbaijan, Anne Derse, traveled to Nakhichevan and met with the leaders of various opposition political parties there. Baku commentators viewed her visit as an American affirmation of their country's territorial integrity.
While that reading is undoubtedly correct and will certainly be invoked by Azerbaijan in its dispute with Armenia over the future status of Karabakh, Derse's visit may be more important as an indication of Nakhichevan's importance not only within Azerbaijan but also as a land between that country and Iran.
On the one hand, Nakhichevan is the homeland of both Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and his late father, Heidar, and like many non-contiguous border areas in other countries whose people feel pressure from their neighbors, it has been a powerful source of Azerbaijani nationalism.
On the other hand, in 15 years since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Nakhichevan has been the region in which Shiite religious groups tied to Iran have been especially active. Indeed, at one point Baku moved to close down many of what it has always referred to as "Iranian" mosques.
|
Even other Muslims have to bear down and deal with religious radicals and geographical disputes...
Where's CAIR and their press conference about their brethren?... 
__________________
"You get the respect that you give" - cnredd
|
Linear Mode
