Azerbaijan's Foreign Ministry Calls for Sobriety from Armenia and Iran's Ambassador in Armenia

We categorically reject the claims made by Mehdi Sobhani, the Ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Armenia, regarding the community of Western Azerbaijan. This statement was made by Ayhan Hajizadeh, the head of the press service of the Azerbaijan Foreign Ministry, in response to the Iranian ambassador's assertions about the Western Azerbaijan community.

According to him, the manipulative interpretation of the decisions adopted by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Istanbul regarding the Western Azerbaijan community raises astonishment and anger as it distorts the clear intention of these decisions to defend justice and human rights for a community that has been systematically expelled from the territory of modern Armenia through violence, threats, and gross violations.

“If the ambassador is not familiar with the text of the resolutions adopted by the OIC, we advise him to read them carefully. The resolutions, including the one titled ‘The Right of Return of Azerbaijanis Expelled and Systematically Displaced from the Present Territory of Armenia,’ reflect undeniable historical facts based on the principles of international law and justice. These resolutions demand the restoration of the fundamental rights of displaced Azerbaijanis rather than the territorial demands misrepresented by Armenia and voiced by the Iranian ambassador,” he said.

“Moreover, the resolution condemns the continued denial of the fundamental rights of the Community by Armenia among other things. The ambassador's false statements, which are intended to satisfy Armenia's needs, are particularly dangerous as they contradict the position of the Islamic Republic of Iran presented at the ministerial level in Istanbul, which, along with 57 other countries, supported the decisions regarding the Western Azerbaijan community.”

“The ambassador's regular and systematic provocative statements against Azerbaijan aim to undermine the relations between Azerbaijan and Iran. It is necessary to embrace sobriety. It is respectful to disseminate such distortions of Armenia with enthusiasm, being ‘more Catholic than the Pope’,” Hajizadeh added.