Iran calls on Azerbaijan to avoid moves straining bilateral ties

Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Nasser Kanani has urged Baku to refrain from hostile measures and comments which could lead to diplomatic tensions between the two countries.

In a weekly press conference on May 8, asked about the expulsion of four Azerbaijani diplomats from Iran, the spokesman said that it came in response to Azerbaijan’s “non-constructive action” to expel four Iranian diplomats.

“We have always expressed our views on relations with the Republic of Azerbaijan clearly and transparently,” he said, in reaction to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s recent remarks, according to the Iranian state news agency IRNA.

“The relations between the two nations are unbreakable, and we should not take any action that is not in the interests of the two countries but is in the interest of the parties who want to harm those relations,” Kanani added.

On May 5, Iran declared four Azerbaijani diplomats persona non-grata, including two staff members of the embassy in Tehran and two employees of the consulate in Tabriz.

Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry’s Spokesperson Aykhan Hajizada said the Iranian decision was a tit-for-tat response to the analogical measure taken by Baku in April this year. Azerbaijani authorities declared on April 6 four employees of the embassy of the Islamic Republic to Baku Mirmahdi Mirsalampur Sherif, Gurbanali Purmerjan Varjovi, Hadi Moghadam, and Asker Bahari Khosh Menzer persona non grata and gave then 48 hours to leave.

At the time, Baku explained the decision noting activities that were “incompatible with diplomatic status and contradicted the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations”.

Baku’s relations with Tehran were strained in January following a deadly attack on the Azerbaijani Embassy in Tehran. During the attack, an armed assailant killed the embassy’s security chief and injured two security service officers.

Azerbaijan accused members of Iran’s political establishment of allowing the crime to occur and avoiding a transparent investigation into the incident. In response, Baku evacuated the embassy’s staff, closed the diplomatic mission, and demanded that Tehran launch an immediate investigation into the crime, detain the perpetrators, and provide information about the results of the investigation.

Furthermore, the preliminary investigation into the armed attack on Azerbaijani parliament member Fazil Mustafa on March 28 also pointed to the Iranian trail. Several individuals were detained on April 3 by the Interior Ministry, State Security Service, and Prosecutor General’s Office of Azerbaijan, on suspicion of attempting to assassinate MP Mustafa.

President Ilham Aliyev recently said that the relationship between Iran and Azerbaijan was at the “lowest ever level” due to the anti-Azerbaijan steps taken by the Islamic Republic. According to him, the condition for normalizing the strained relations is consideration of Azerbaijan’s “legitimate and justified demands”.

“If these demands are met, then we can talk about normalization. If not, then not. So, again, it was not our choice. But everybody in Iran, all segments of the establishment, should finally understand that the language of threats and terror will not work with Azerbaijan. The sooner they understand, the better we can see signs of normalization,” Aliyev said on May 3.