Foreign Ministry confirms expulsion of Azerbaijani diplomats from Iran /UPDATED/

The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry on Friday afternoon confirmed reports this morning of the expulsion of Azerbaijani diplomats from Iran.

A press release on the Foreign Ministry's website says that the Iranian side a few days after the expulsion of Iranian diplomats from Azerbaijan, citing the principle of reciprocity, declared two employees of the Azerbaijani Embassy in Iran and two employees of the Consulate General in Tabriz undesirable. -16-

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2023 May 05 (Friday) 13:34:42

Reports on expulsion of Azerbaijani diplomats from Iran are confirmed

Baku/05.05.23/Turan: Today a number of unofficial sources reported the expulsion of four Azerbaijani diplomats from Iran – two from the Embassy in Tehran and two from the Consulate in Tabriz.

There is no such information on the website of the Iranian Foreign Ministry, representatives of official Tehran also did not report this. There was no statement by the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry on this matter either.

Turan Agency appealed to the Azerbaijani Consulate in Tabriz, where they did not confirm or deny the fact of the expulsion, recommending contacting the press service of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

In turn, the press service reported that there will be an official announcement.

As Turan Agency learned from unofficial sources, this fact took place last month, but was not advertised.

On April 6, Azerbaijan declared 4 employees of the Tehran Embassy in Baku persona non grata. Some time later, Tehran did the same. However, the Azerbaijani Embassy was closed back in January after a terrorist attack against the diplomatic mission and the murder of a security officer. A day later, all the Embassy staff left Iran and returned to Baku.

Thus, in reality, we can talk about the expulsion of two diplomats. Time will tell whether official Baku will respond to this.

*Relations between the two countries deteriorated sharply after Azerbaijan's victory in the Second Karabakh War. Tehran has never hidden its negative attitude towards Azerbaijan and considered it as threat.

After the collapse of the USSR, Iran actually became Armenia's ally after it failed to impose the Iranian path of development on Azerbaijan.

Since the fall of 2022, Tehran has moved to open military threats, demanding that Baku not exert pressure on Armenia.

The current government of Iran, headed by President Raisi, turned out to be the most hostile to Azerbaijan in history after the collapse of the USSR and the independence of Azerbaijan. -02B-