Page 50 - IRANRptNov21

9.1.4 Transport sector news
Azerbaijan releases Iranian truck drivers as Baku and Tehran dial down tensions
Uzbekistan ‘committed to sending trade through Iran’s Indian Ocean port Chabahar’
Azerbaijan on October 21 released two Iranian truck drivers arrested last month on charges of unlawfully entering the country. The case is among issues that have strained relations between the two neighbours, with tense verbal exchanges taking place against a backdrop in which both held extensive military exercises.
A week ago, the top diplomats of Azerbaijan and Iran agreed both sides would refrain from further inflammatory rhetoric and concentrate on in dialogue to resolve their differences.
Azerbaijan's customs department said it had handed over the drivers to the Iranian Embassy in Baku in a decision "guided by principles of humanitarianism, mutual respect, and good neighbourliness," RFE/RL reported.
Detained on September 12, the truck drivers were held while Iran threatened an unspecified response over what it claimed was the unwarranted presence of archenemy Israel in Azerbaijan. The Azerbaijani regime, which has made major defence and security purchases from Israel, denied there was any such presence. Tehran is also known to be wary of the growing Turkish presence in the South Caucasus since Ankara aggressively supported “brother nation” Azerbaijan in its war last year with Armenia over breakaway self-proclaimed republic Nagorno-Karabakh and neighbouring districts.
Azerbaijani troops conducted drills alongside Turkish and Pakistani forces that appeared to trigger Iran into conducting rare military drills along its 700-kilometre border with Azerbaijan. The announcement that Turkish armed forces were taking part in Caspian Sea exercises particularly exercised Tehran, which insists only countries with a coast running along the sea are permitted to have a military presence on its waters.
Importantly, in the dispute over the drivers, some of the territory recaptured by Azerbaijan in the Karabakh conflict runs along the border with Iran. It includes a road Iranian trucks have long used to transport goods to Armenia. Baku arrested the drivers, saying they entered Azerbaijan via the road, attempting to bypass a road tax it had introduced on cargo transiting to Armenia. They were also accused of attempting to smuggle goods to Karabakh.
The Iranian Ministry of Roads and Transport this week ordered Iranian transport companies to avoid crossing into Nagorno-Karabakh and the Lachin region, an area recaptured by Azerbaijan and monitored by Russian peacekeepers. The companies were told that entry into Azerbaijan could only take place via official border crossings.
Uzbekistan is committed to solving access and other issues that stand in the way of the landlocked country conducting import and export trade via Iran’s Chabahar port, Iran Chamber reported on October 27.
The Iranians and the Indian state are jointly developing Chabahar, Iran’s sole oceanic port, which offers direct access to the Indian Ocean. Trade flows running out of and into Uzbekistan via Iranian territory can take a route via Turkmenistan. The Pakistanis and China are developing a rival port to Chabahar, Gwadar on Pakistan’s Arabian Sea coast. However, to use Gwadar as an export-import hub, Uzbekistan would have to rely on trade flows crossing Afghanistan. Given the added turmoil that could potentially beset Afghanistan as the country adjusts to its second Taliban regime, the Uzbeks as things stand will be wary of betting on Gwadar as a preferred option to Gwadar for trade access to the ocean.
Chabahar is a key feature of the emerging International North–South
50 IRAN Country Report November 2021 www.intellinews.com