Tehran at odds with ethnic Azerbaijanis in Iran Terror without borders

The Iranian mullah regime has once again reminded the world of its terrorist nature with a vile attack on a member of the board of the National Liberation Front of South Azerbaijan (GAMAC) Ahmad Obali and his son Deniz Obali. There are more than enough grounds for supposing that this terrorist act was committed precisely on orders from Tehran.

This is confirmed not only by Tehran’s current hostile rhetoric, accompanied by threats against Azerbaijan, but also by the demonstration of military force on the border with Azerbaijan under the pretext of exercises, and even such a treacherous event as an armed attack on the Azerbaijani embassy in Tehran on January 27, 2023, as a result of which one person was killed, two more were seriously injured. Two months later, an attempt was made on the life of Azerbaijani MP Fazil Mustafa.

Tehran appears to be venting its rage and irritation that things are not going as "they should have been" in Baku, that is as the Iranian rulers expected. Apparently, they were waiting for Baku's position on the margins of geopolitical life and under Tehran’s "sensitive" leadership. Azerbaijan’s brilliant victory in the Second Karabakh War [in 2020], multiple diplomatic achievements and significantly increased global authority prompted an aggressive response from Tehran: the ayatollahs do not need an independent and strong Baku, they prefer to see our country as their satellite.

It should also be noted that, against the background of all of the above, South Azerbaijan has actually become the main arena of many anti-government protests. And the locomotive of this struggle has been the National Liberation Movement of South Azerbaijan for more than 30 years, in which Ahmad Obali occupies a special place thanks to his selfless patriotism and fearlessness in the struggle for freedom and rights not only of southern Azerbaijanis but also of all citizens of the Islamic Republic.

Ahmad Obali, a political emigrant from South Azerbaijan living in the United States, is known as a staunch supporter of the ideology of Azerbaijanism and opposes the attempts of the mullah regime to screen these multimillion people living in Iran.

Obali insists on preserving and strengthening the national identity of Azerbaijanis and calls for the creation of the Republic of South Azerbaijan. And six months ago, an Azerbaijani activist at the event "Iran from a new point of view" exposed PEJAK, the Iranian wing of PKK on the border with Turkey, declaring it terrorist and extremely dangerous.

"PKK's main roots are in Iran. The official PKK wing in Iran is PEJAK. PEJAK was created by Iran itself, but now the organisation has become a threat to the country. If South Azerbaijan is free, there will be neither the PKK nor the Kurdish strip between us. We are waiting for steps from fraternal Turkey, a positive signal from it will give impetus to our movement, and the Azerbaijani president’s support affects this," Ahmad Obali said, which, of course, did not go unnoticed in Tehran. The ayatollah regime is also enraged by its reasoned criticism of the spread of radical ideologies by Tehran in the region and the world.

Obali's arguments are based, firstly, on the fact that Iran, having historical ties with Azerbaijan, for some reason continues to provide military and economic support to Armenia, supporting the remnants of separatists in Karabakh and ignoring the interests of Baku already in the post-conflict period, not to mention three decades of Armenian occupation.

Second, after the Second Karabakh War, when favourable conditions for establishing regional cooperation within the framework of the 3+3 platform appeared, Iran chose the path of discord and enmity with Azerbaijan, unambiguously siding with Yerevan.

As for the factor of South Azerbaijan, the mullah regime is afraid of its independence and the creation of a new state. However, there are certain grounds for this, given that the idea of an independent South Azerbaijan has reasserted itself: in recent years, at least eight major movements have emerged with different agendas - from demands to grant cultural autonomy to Azerbaijanis in Iran to the declaration of full independence.

We can recall how activists pasted leaflets with the flag of independent South Azerbaijan in February of this year, and then a flash mob of Azerbaijanis took place in the centre of Tabriz. In fact, this is a message to the mullah regime that the secession of South Azerbaijan is inevitable, that it is a matter of time and this day is not far off.

And it is not surprising that Tehran resorts to bloody terror to stop the spread of the ideology of Azerbaijanism and even physically destroys its activists. Committed fighters against the regime in the country’s northern provinces are subjected to severe persecution and imprisonment.

There are many confirmations of such a nationalist-discriminatory policy. For example, a well-known activist from South Azerbaijan, Alireza Farshi, was sentenced to 10 years in prison only for promoting the Azerbaijani language on International Mother Tongue Day to encourage Azerbaijani youth to learn their language and speak it.

It is also known that the Iranian government prohibits giving Azerbaijani names to newborns, and restricts their cultural expression and the use of the Azerbaijani language in the media, literature, art, and education.

The reaction of Iranian Azerbaijanis to the infringement of their rights is expressed in demonstrations and other protest actions. This March, thousands of demonstrations against violations in the country's schools occurred in major cities such as Tabriz, Ardabil, Zanjan, Gazvin and Julfa.

Even more massive actions took place in these cities in May 2006, after the Iranian authorities published in the official newspaper Iran a derogatory cartoon depicting all Turks, including Azerbaijanis, in the form of insects.

According to official data, at least 30 people were killed by police at that time, hundreds were injured, which showed that there was no alternative to solving any problems related to the Turkic-Azerbaijani factor by the method of violence carried out by the Iranian regime. But Tehran does not seem to realize this and is still trying to pacify the Iranian Azerbaijanis through violence, brutality and terror, as evidenced by the assassination attempt on Ahmad Obali.