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bne December 2017
Opinion 51
although, in the case of the former two, Uzbekistan must first rehabilitate a pipeline before it can bring in any oil flows.
Iran’s Petroleum Minister Bijan Namdar Zangeneh said “high-ranking” Tashkent oil officials will come to Tehran in the near future to develop the oil deal-making. "Exports to [Uzbekistan] need to be conducted overland and probably by rail," he added.
Sure enough, shortly after the Uzbek delegation’s visit to Iran, Afghanistan’s railway administration announced that Uzbeki- stan was interested in helping Afghanistan build a railway line between the two countries in order to gain “a direct route”
to Iran. Uzbekistan is already connected to Mazar-i-Sharif in Afghanistan – the idea is for a new line from Mazar-i-Sharif to Herat that would extend the railway route to the Iranian border.
The Afghan railway administration noted the new northwest link would in fact help increase trade between Iran, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and China. That would also be in line with China’s massive One Belt, One Road trade infrastructure initiative, which seeks to turn Central Asia into a transit zone for Chinese goods exports. An existing segment of a China-Iran railway passing through Uzbekistan could also potentially serve to enhance trade between Uzbekistan and Iran.
Apart from being keen on importing Iranian oil, Uzbekistan is also pursuing possible access via Iran to the Persian Gulf. During an Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) sum- mit in Astana in September, Iranian President Hassan Rou- hani hinted that Iran could become the “shortest route” for Uzbekistan’s business people to access the Persian Gulf and
“When it comes to mutual trade, Uzbekistan is the party with the greater hunger”
international waters. The Iranian president’s remarks followed Uzbekistan’s lifting of strict currency controls on September 5, which have long hurt the Central Asian country’s prospects for drawing in FDI.
The visit to Iran paid by the Uzbek delegation represents more than just economic benefits for Uzbekistan, however, as there is a political dimension to the thawing relations between the countries.
Iran’s troubles and ambitions in Central Asia
After Uzbekistan gained its independence in late 1991, Karimov’s government, fearing Islamist terrorist groups, saw Iran as an Islamic-fundamentalist threat, despite Iran’s mostly Shi’a population having little in common with Sunni-related
Islamist groups, including the Islamic Movement of Uzbeki- stan (IMU), which only has connections to extremist cells in Afghanistan. Even after Karimov’s death, Uzbekistan was seen as a less likely Central Asia ally for Tehran compared to, for instance, Tajikistan, a country that shares a common cultural and linguistic heritage with the Islamic Republic.
However, the importance to Tehran of strengthening Uzbek- Iranian ties to maintain influence in Central Asia has grown throughout this year, given that Iran’s relations with Tajikistan and Turkmenistan have deteriorated.
Tajikistan’s common Persian history with Iran has proved insufficient to keep Dushanbe from complaining about Teh-
“It marked the first time that the Tajiks had publicly blamed Iran for
meddling in their war”
ran's alleged intrusions in Tajik politics throughout recent decades. Such accusations reached new heights in August when Dushanbe condemned Iran for alleged (but unproven) involvement in Tajikistan’s 1992-97 civil war. It marked the first time that the Tajiks had publicly blamed Iran for meddling in their war.
According to allegations aired by Tajik state television in a documentary, Iran supposedly sent assassins and saboteurs into the former Soviet nation to support an Islamist-led rebel force. Three Tajiks shown in the documentary confessed to the killing of politicians and other prominent Tajik figures as well as attacks on a Tajikistan-based Russian military base. The trio, the documentary claimed, received financial support and training from Iran.
The documentary also claimed that the Tajiks were support- ers of Abdukhalim Nazarzoda, an ex-deputy defence minister and rebel general, who was allegedly planning a coup and was killed in 2015 by Tajik authorities in a shootout. By linking the trio to Nazarzoda, Tajik authorities were implying that Iran has links to the banned Islamic Renaissance Party (IRP), which was labelled as a terrorist organisation and even “recognised” by the China-led Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO)
as an extremist group. While Nazarzoda had not explicitly been a supporter of the IRP, the authorities claim he operated on behalf of the banned party, when he attempted a coup.
The Tajik authorities have been cracking down on IRP mem- bers since the party was banned in 2015. Prior to the ban, the IRP was the only registered political party of Islamic affiliation in the whole of Central Asia. It also served as the only formi- dable political opposition to the Tajik regime led by Emomali Rahmon since 1992. The party failed to enter parliament in the February 2015 election, which international observers
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