Iran’s border-sharing neighbours: Why Tehran has a complicated relationship with most

Iran and its neighbours. ARM is Armenia and AZER is Azerbaijan. (CIA map, enhanced and modified using Google Gemini)

Iran’s northern neighbours

Iran’s most friendly neighbours lie to the north, Armenia and Turkmenistan. Azerbaijan has a significant Shia population, but the Shia clergy in power in Iran doesn’t get along with it. Azerbaijan and Armenia have long fought over Nagorno-Karabakh, which is a part of Azerbaijan but houses ethnic Armenians. Iran has backed Armenia, the losing side, in this. Tehran also suspects Azerbaijan of fomenting Azeri insurgency within its borders, and allowing Israel the use of its territory to spy on Iran.

Iran’s ties with Pakistan

While Iran and Pakistan have intermittently tried to maintain cordial ties, regional pressures and Shia-Sunni rivalries are often too much to handle. On the other hand, both Iran and Pakistan have struggled with Baloch militancy and have occasionally cooperated to tackle this.

At present, for Pakistan, a good relationship with Iran’s rival Saudi Arabia is crucial, as Riyadh is a major financial benefactor of Islamabad. Pakistan also tries, with varying degrees of success, to stay in the good books of the US. Right now, Pakistan is basking in rare warmth from the Donald Trump-led Washington DC, and can’t endanger that by any loud support for Iran.

Iran’s ties with Afghanistan

The two neighbours have long clashed over Iran’s rights to the waters of the Helmand river, through the various regime changes each has seen. Tehran’s relationship with the first Taliban regime was tense. In 1998, the Sunni-hardline Taliban had killed 10 Iranian diplomats and a journalist in the Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif.

However, Iran welcomed US withdrawal from Afghanistan, as US troops stationed right next door was a daily threat. At present, the Taliban 2.0 and Tehran have been cautiously furthering ties.

Iran’s ties with Turkey

Again, it is very complicated. The once-great Ottoman and Persian empires were rivals, but the present-day Iran and Turkey recognise that neither has a significant military edge over the other, and have largely remained pragmatically peaceful. In the constant play of proxy forces in the region, though, Ankara and Tehran have found themselves on opposing sides. In Syria for example, Iran backed the Bashar-al-Assad regime and Turkey the rebels. Turkey is also an ally of Azerbaijan.

Under Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey loathes the increasing might and muscle of Israel, but is largely happy with Iran not being able to build a nuclear bomb.

Iran and Iraq’s relationship

Complicated doesn’t begin to describe it. Barely a year after the Islamic Revolution of 1979 in Iran brought the current regime to power, Iraq invaded it, in a devastating war that killed hundreds of thousands. After the fall of Saddam Hussein, there have been efforts at normalising ties. Shared dislike of Israel has helped, while Iran’s penchant for fostering non-state actors has not. Iran backs paramilitary groups in Iraq, which are together called the Popular Mobilization Forces, and include outfits like Kata’ib Hezbollah and Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq, and hopes they will come to its aid when attacked. However, it desists from relatively overt interference in Iraq’s internal politics, having learnt from the past.