Iran warns Azerbaijan over Israeli 'arms buy': reports

Iran challenged Azerbaijan on Tuesday over $1.5 billion in arms it said were purchased from arch-foe Israel, state media reported, in a sign of further strains between the neighbouring countries.

Azebaijan's ambassador to Tehran was called in to the foreign ministry to explain the weapons and to receive a warning that Israel must not be permitted to use Azerbaijan to stage "terrorist acts" against Iran.

The reports came a week after police in Azerbaijan said they arrested an unspecified number of people linked to Iran and to the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah on suspicion of planning attacks in the country.

On February 12, Iran accused Azerbaijan, which is mainly Muslim, of working with Israel's spy services and helping assassins who murdered Iranian nuclear scientists in recent years.

This is part of a larger development, another issue is this:

Moscow is shocked by Baku's decision to increase the rent for a Russian radar stationed in Azerbaijan’s north – to the tune of 40 times the current cost. Russia, who has been spending $7M per year on the station, says the demand is crazy.

The rent contract on Gabala Radar Station runs out in December, so Moscow and Baku both feel it is high time to improve the terms. While Russia wants a 25-year contract as opposed to just a 3-year one, Baku has gone for higher charges.

The initial increase was set to be $15 million to cover electricity and other utility bills, which have not remained unchanged since 2002. As the talks halted on this point two months ago, Moscow sent a group of ministers to challenge the new price.

The result was anything but desired. Baku raised its expectations to $150 million – and more recently, to $300 million.

“This price is not justified and is just too high. We will fight for a substantial decrease,” a source in the Russian Defense Ministry told Kommersant.

“If Baku does not mollify its financial appetite, we shall leave the station,” declared another senior military official.

The sides only have until June to settle their dispute.

Whether Azerbaijan is playing a negotiating tactic, as though in an international super-bazaar, is hard to tell.

Analysts suppose the move might be retaliation against Moscow, who is putting obstacles in Baku’s way to build a gas pipeline in the Caspian Sea. The pipeline, which could transfer natural gas from Turkmenistan to Azerbaijan, would bypass any Russian supply route. Baku wants to keep this project between itself and Ashgabat. But Moscow says that the Caspian Sea has not been properly split among nations, and that no construction should take place there without the sanction of all the sea-side countries.

Baku refutes the gas issue has any link to Gabala dispute.

There are also speculations that the radar station might be hindering tourism development.

“The station is no use. It is located in a health resort area. Would you have such a thing in Courchevel?” asks political analyst Rasim Musabekov.

To Moscow, losing Gabala might become somewhat problematic. The new radar “Voronezh-DM” in Russia’s south could substitute the Azerbaijani station, but its second unit is still being tested. As for Gabala itself, if Russian forces abandon it, the radar may fall into NATO’s hands.

The Gabala Radar Station, in use since 1985, covers a range of 6,000 km (3,700 miles) and can spot ballistic and cruise missiles fired from as far away as India or Somalia. The whole of the Middle East, including Iran, is under the station’s eye.
http://indrus.in/articles/2012/03/01/radar_dazzle_azerbaijan_wants_300_million_to_host_russian_locator_15010.html

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