Iran does not dare to put pressure on Azerbaijan – Ilham Aliyev

Baku/03.05.23/Turan: Azerbaijan's relations with Iran were smooth, despite Iran's support for Armenia and Tehran's close ties with Yerevan. After the Second Karabakh War, relations between Iran and Azerbaijan deteriorated, but not on the initiative of Baku, the head of state Ilham Aliyev, said at the meeting with the articipants of the international conference in Shusha on Wednesday.

"It all started with the fact that our monitoring of the Lachin-Khankyandi road recorded the flow of Iranian trucks to Karabakh. It was illegal, because recognizing the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, Iran should not violate it," Aliyev said.

Monitoring has confirmed that this happens regularly. The Iranian Ambassador in Baku was warned about this and expected that Iran would stop this practice. However, this did not happen. Azerbaijan expressed an official protest, but after that the flow of transport from Iran to Karabakh even increased.

"We have even noticed attempts to deceive Azerbaijan and carry out illegal deliveries to Karabakh under the guise of vehicles from other countries. The drivers of these trucks, Iranian citizens, were detained by us, and their documents indicated that the goods were sent from Iran to Stepanakert-Armenia," Aliyev said.

Illegal transport to Karabakh was stopped, but a campaign of criticism and pressure and outright threats against Azerbaijan at various levels began in Iran. It has come to military exercises and direct threats from Iran against Azerbaijan. In response, Azerbaijan conducted the same exercises with the participation of the Turkish Air Force and special forces, Aliyev said.

After that, Iranian officials have repeatedly stated that they want to improve relations, but after that a terrorist attack was carried out against the Azerbaijani embassy in Tehran. "It destroyed all the agreements and promises. Within an hour, a terrorist attacked the embassy in front of the Iranian police. Later, the authorities declared the terrorist insane, who came to the embassy for his wife.

Some time ago, a terrorist attack was carried out in Baku by pro-Iranian persons against a member of the Azerbaijani parliament. It is established that they received orders from Iran. All this has become a violation of Iran's red lines," Aliyev stressed.

Now the relations are at the lowest level and it is difficult to say how they will be in the future. "Everyone in Iran should understand one truth - attempts to put pressure on Azerbaijan will not yield results," Ilham Aliyev concluded. ---02B---