Official: Tehran doing everything to deprive Azerbaijanis living in Iran of national identity

Chairman of the Azerbaijani Parliamentary Committee on Defence, Security and Fight against Corruption Ziyafat Asgarov has said that after the end of the second Karabakh war, Iran held three military exercises on the border with Azerbaijan, the last exercises were the biggest ones.

Asgarov made the remarks at the Azerbaijani parliament session on November 16, APA reports.

"Azerbaijanis were persecuted, threatened and tortured. Iran deliberately, at the level of official state policy, is doing everything to deprive our compatriots of their national identity. This persecution ultimately ends with the military, political and economic support for Armenia,” the chairman of the parliamentary committee noted.

"This leads to an alliance with a terrorist country - Armenia, destroying Muslim culture, insulting Islam. For all this, Iran must answer to our compatriots and fellow believers living there," he said.

Asgarov stressed that "the existence of 10 million of our compatriots living in Iran is questioned and a threat is posed to them. The national government established by our people in Tabriz in 1945, the rights and freedoms proclaimed by it were suppressed".