page_title: Azerbaijan–Iran relations
section_title: Collaborative-conflicting energy issues
hierarchical_section_title: Azerbaijan–Iran relations / Relations from 1991 up to including 2012 / Collaborative-conflicting energy issues
caption_attribution_description: Memorandum of Understanding on co-operation was signed between Azerbaijan and Iran in the field of energy and transport
context_page_description: Azerbaijan–Iran relations are foreign relations between the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Islamic Republic of Iran. Iran has an embassy in Baku and a consulate-general in Nakhchivan City. Azerbaijan has an embassy in Tehran and a consulate-general in Tabriz. Official diplomatic relations between Azerbaijan and Iran were established after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Iran and Azerbaijan share, to a large extent, the same history, religion, ethnicity, and culture.
  The territory of what is now called the Republic of Azerbaijan was only separated from Iran in the first half of the 19th century, through the Russo-Persian Wars. In the area to the North of the river Aras, the territory of the contemporary Republic of Azerbaijan was Iranian territory until it was occupied by Russia. Iran and Azerbaijan are furthermore the only official Shia Muslim nations in the world where the vast majority of the people are Shia Muslims.
context_section_description: On December 20, 2005 Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliev and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad attended the opening ceremony of a new gas pipeline from Iran to Azerbaijan's landlocked Nakhchivan Autonomous Region, which is separated from the mainland of Azerbaijan by a strip of Armenian territory. Nakhchivan has been cut off from gas supplies as a result of the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh. Under a 25-year swap contract signed between the two countries in August 2004, the new pipeline will supply the region with Iranian natural gas. Azerbaijan will also deliver its gas to Iran's northeastern provinces. The volume of gas imports to Nakhchivan is expected to reach 250 million cubic meters in 2006 and 350 million cubic meters in 2007.
  On March 19, 2007, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran joined President Robert Kocharyan of Armenia to inaugurate a gas pipeline to pump Iranian natural gas to Armenia. Armenia is Azerbaijan's arch-foe.
caption: In 2010, a memorandum of understanding and co-operation in the field of energy and transport was signed in Baku.
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