Pashazade takes care of Iran, opposing Azerbaijan to America

On July 5, Sheikh-ul-Islam Allahshukur Pashazade, chair of the Caucasus Muslims Office, Secretary General of the Baku International Center for Religious and Inter-Civilizational Cooperation, went beyond his religious authority by taking the initiative on US-Iran relations.

A. Pashazadeh wrote a letter to US President Donald Trump.  In his letter  he asked  Trump on behalf of the believers of the Caucasus region and Azerbaijan, and on his own behalf, as the head of the Baku International Center for Inter-Religious and Inter-Civilizational Cooperation,  the members of which  are famous Jewish, Christian, Muslim religious leaders, including leaders of US religious denominations, to  “suspend sanctions against the Iranian people."

Pashazade indicates the period for his request: during a pandemic, on the eve of the Ramadan holiday, to mitigate the catastrophic effect of coronavirus on the suffering Iranian people. The text of the appeal is published on the website of the Caucasus Muslims Office https://www.qafqazislam.com/

The latest anti-Iranian statement by the US president was a promise not to allow Iran to receive nuclear weapons when Iran launched a missile attack on US military facilities in Iraq this January.

"Iran will not receive nuclear weapons while I am the head of state," said Donald Trump, addressing the nation at the White House on Wednesday, January 8. Washington will immediately impose additional sanctions on the Islamic Republic, Trump added. Tehran "is time to abandon nuclear ambitions," the American leader emphasized and called on a number of countries, including Britain, Germany, France and Russia to "recognize a new reality" and reconsider their positions on a nuclear deal with Iran. The United States continues to evaluate Iran’s response options.

Against this political background, not the president of Azerbaijan, not the first vice president and chair of the Milli Majlis, but the public figure Pashazade asks Trump to lift sanctions on Iran.  This appeal links the public interests of Azerbaijanis with Iranian politics, becoming the defender of the leadership of the Islamic Republic. At the same time, Pashazade disagrees with US policy against Iran.

Washington did not answer, but the politicized part of Azerbaijani Muslims was indignant.

“Why does not Sheikh write such a letter to Ilham Aliyev, asking to release Taleh Bagirzade and other religious prisoners from Azerbaijani prisons? However, he writes a letter to Trump with a request to suspend sanctions against Iran. It turns out that he deserves to be sentenced to prison for alleged crimes silence and ignoring, but sanctions against dictatorial regimes are bad. What is hypocrisy? Blasphemy? ", the reader is outraged with the nickname Paul Kagame.

“Sanctions can be lifted if Iran’s Shiite terrorism is curbed! The hotbeds of terrorism are Iran and Russia,” the second one, under the nickname Observer, answers the first reader.

In a lengthy post on the social network, a journalist Nijat Ismailov analyzed the previous activities of Sheikh ul-Islam Pashazade, who over the past 10 years has never defended the Azerbaijanis in Iran, against whom the regime uses repression and torture. Ismailov allowed Turan to quote his appeal indicating the name of the author.

"In 2011, dozens of Iranian Azerbaijanis were executed for political reasons, in 2011-2012 Lake Urmu in South Azerbaijan was dried up by the Tehran authorities, then thousands of Azerbaijanis protested, but Pashazade was silent. In 2015, Iranian state bodies were insulting against Azerbaijanis statements, and Pashazade continued to remain silent. According to statistics from 2015-2016, about 600 convicts were executed in Iran, of which about 200 were ethnic Azerbaijanis, most were killed for political activities. Pashazade was silent again. When the Persian regime continued to oppress the ethnic rights of Azerbaijanis to study their native language and culture; when Iran supplied gas to Armenia, built electric lines there, investsed in the Armenian market, and even allocated funds for the restoration of Azerbaijan’s mosque in occupied Shusha, and a sign was placed in front of the mosque in Iran: “object Farsi cultural heritage,” Pashazade continued to be silent. And after that, the sheikh is not happy with the American sanctions ...» Nijat Ismailov was surprised.

Finally, the United States appealed to the Azerbaijani authorities to release religious political prisoners for the period of the coronavirus pandemic. In response, the authorities were silent, and Pashazade was silent.

We add that all Azerbaijani media limited themselves to quoting Pashazade’s appeal to Trump, without analyzing this strange initiative.

Telephones in the Main Directorate of Muslims of the Caucasus are silent.