Iran and Azerbaijan disagree on whether Friday’s attack on the Azeri embassy in Tehran constituted a ‘terrorist act’.
News Desk
Tehran, JAN 29: Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi has told his Azerbaijani counterpart that bilateral relations should not be affected after an attack on Baku’s embassy in Tehran that left one person dead.
The attack took place on Friday when a man rushed the embassy with an assault rifle and opened fire, killing the head of the security staff and injuring two other guards.
Raisi and President Ilham Aliyev had a phone call on Saturday to discuss the issue, during which the Iranian president expressed his condolences and said an investigation is under way.
“The governments of Iran and Azerbaijan will not allow bilateral relations to be affected by the suggestions of those who wish ill on the two nations,” Raisi was quoted as saying on his official website.
The Iranian president’s website also quoted Aliyev as saying “this was an unexpected crime, but cooperation between the two countries on this must be in a way that no one will find an opportunity to disrupt friendly bilateral relations using such incidents as an excuse”.
But the readout of the call by the Azerbaijani presidency made no mention of this, further stressing a point concerning the attack that has divided Tehran and Baku. Ilham Aliyev strongly condemned the terrorist act and stressed that had it not been for a second guard who tackled the gunman, “he would have targeted other employees of the embassy and their family members living in the apartment section of the embassy compound”.
CCTV footage released by Iran showed the attacker hurriedly arriving at the scene with his car and crashing into another vehicle parked in front of the embassy. After exiting the car with the rifle in hand, he passes an unarmed Iranian guard sitting in a booth and enters the embassy shooting. While shooting at two Azerbaijani guards, a third tackles him, eventually disarming the attacker.
Aliyev had immediately condemned the incident as a “terrorist act” while the Azerbaijani foreign ministry summoned Iran’s envoy to Baku and said it will evacuate its diplomatic staff.
Many countries, including Pakistan, Russia, Turkey and the United States condemned the attack and called for a transparent investigation.
Iran, home to millions of ethnic Azeris, has long accused Baku of fomenting separatist sentiments in the country and has also taken issue with some of its plan following the Nagorno-Karabakh war that could affect its borders with Armenia.
Tehran has also repeatedly warned Baku against its expanding military cooperation with Israel, saying Israel could potentially use Azerbaijani territory as a bridgehead against Iran.
