Shabtabnews In this dark night, I have lost my way – Arise from a corner, oh you the star of guidance.
Iranwire – Azerbaijan says it has declared four Iranian Embassy employees persona non grata, after announcing the arrest of six men allegedly linked to Iran’s secret services.
Relations between the two neighbors have grown increasingly strained in recent months, with the dispute coming to a head last week, when Azerbaijan opened an embassy in Iran’s arch-foe Israel.
In the latest friction between Baku and Tehran, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry summoned the Iranian ambassador on April 6 and informed him that the four embassy employees were given 48 hours to leave the country “due to their activities…incompatible with diplomatic status,” it said in a statement.
“During the meeting, strong dissatisfaction was expressed to the Iranian ambassador due to the recent provocative actions demonstrated by his country in relation to Azerbaijan,” the ministry added.
Earlier on April 6, Azerbaijan said it had arrested six men it said were “recruited by Iranian secret services to destabilize the situation in the country.”
A joint statement by the Interior Ministry, Prosecutor-General’s Office and state security service said that the group was plotting to “set up a ‘resistance squad’ aimed at establishing a Sharia state in Azerbaijan through armed unrest and violent overthrow of Azerbaijan’s constitutional order.”
The group promoted “radical Islam” using money from drug profits, it added.
In November 2022, Azerbaijan arrested five of its nationals for spying for Iran and 19 more men who Baku claimed belonged to an “illegal armed group under the control of Iran secret services.
Azerbaijan halted the operation of its embassy in Iran in January after what it called a “terrorist attack” that killed the diplomatic mission’s head of security and wounded two others. Baku blamed the January 27 attack on the Iranian secret services.
Baku and Tehran have often had strained relations, with Azerbaijan accusing the Islamic Republic of trying to destabilize the country. Azerbaijan also criticizes Iran for allegedly backing Armenia in the long-standing conflict over Azerbaijan’s breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region.
In turn, Tehran has long accused Baku of fueling separatist sentiments among its sizeable ethnic Azeri minority. The Islamic Republic also fears that Azerbaijani territory could be used for a possible attack against Iran by Israel.
Amid heightened tensions between Azerbaijan and its southern neighbor, Azerbaijan and Israel reaffirmed their strategic ties last week as Baku opened its first embassy in Israel.
Israel is one of Azerbaijan’s leading arms suppliers, while the Shia-majority country has supplied Israel with significant amounts of oil.
“Azerbaijan is a strategic partner of Israel,” Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said as he hosted his Azerbaijani counterpart, Jeyhun Bayramov, noting the two country’s close cooperation on “issues of regional security.”
“Israel and Azerbaijan share the same perception of the Iranian threats,” Cohen said. “The Iranian ayatollah regime threatens both our regions, finances terrorism and destabilizes the entire Middle East.”
Iranian lawmakers issued a statement strongly criticizing Azerbaijan for opening the embassy. They threatened Baku with “many negative political consequences” and urged other Muslim countries to “strongly condemn” Azerbaijan’s action.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry has said that it sees the fledging relationship between Azerbaijan and Israel as “anti-Iranian.”
Meanwhile, Azerbaijani authorities suggested Tehran may be connected to an attempted assassination of a lawmaker with strong anti-Iranian views a week ago.
And on March 30, Baku denounced what it called “slanderous” comments by a senior Iranian military commander who claimed that members of the Islamic State (ISIS) extremist group had fought in the 2020 war between Azerbaijan and Armenia.
It was unclear “whether they have left the region or not,” Kiumars Heydari, head of Iran’s army ground forces, said, adding, “We cannot accept the presence of these terrorists at our borders.”
The Azerbaijani Defense Ministry quickly issued a statement condemning Heydari’s remarks as “vile, defamatory and slanderous.”
