The Armenian Diaspora and Iran's Foreign Policy

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

Department of Regional Studies, Faculty of Law and Political Science, University of Tehran

Abstract

Armenians of Iran cannot be considered part of the Armenian diaspora scattered around the world since they have lived in this territory for millennia. However, in terms of identity and historical memory, they share quite a lot with Armenian communities in other countries. As an Iranian ethnic group, they have played a decisive role in very eventful period of Iran’s history, especially since the last decade of 19th century when constitutionalism began to touch Iran’s intellectual circles. Over the next century, such a prominent role persisted to different extents. Today, Armenians still have remarkable capacities to be involved in resolving some of the domestic and international problems Iran faces. In this paper, we have tried to find out, "How can the presence of the Armenian community affect Iran's interests in terms of foreign relations?" Our hypothesis is that, "The presence of the Armenian community in Iran, with their own potentials and capacities of the larger Armenian diaspora in different parts of the world, will provide the Islamic Republic of Iran with opportunities to widen the scope of its foreign policy choices and as a result, boost its economic and political interests". This subject has been investigated in the article using a descriptive-analytical approach.
 

Keywords

References

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Journal of Iran and Central Eurasia Studies
Volume 2, Issue 1
2019
Pages 131-145

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