Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei took to Twitter to defend Iran’s war games on border and warned against “foreign influence”.
Azerbaijan and its southern neighour Iran have been engaged in a political row over the recent military exercises launched by Tehran on the border.
Iran’s ground forces started drills near the Poldasht and Jolfa border crossings with Azerbaijan on September 24, with the involvement of armoured and artillery units, as well as drones and helicopters.
Azerbaijani leader llham Aliyev criticized Tehran’s decision to hold drills on the border.
Speaking to the Turkish news agency Anadolu on September 27, Aliyev said: “Every country can carry out any military drill on its own territory. It’s their sovereign right. But why now, and why on our border?”
Aliyev also questioned the timing of the drills, stressing that they were held after Azerbaijan regained control over its border with Iran following last year’s war Armenia. The six-week-war last in autumn 2020 saw Azerbaijan liberate most of its territories in and around the Nagorno-Karabakh. Iran and Azerbaijan share a border of around 700 km (430 miles).
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh downplayed Aliyev’s concerns, saying on September 28 that “The drills carried out by our country in the northwest border areas … are a question of sovereignty.”
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian however, linked the drills to Israel’s presence in the region, stressing that Tehran cannot tolerate the presence of the “Zionist regime next to our borders”. At a meeting with Azerbaijan’s new ambassador on September 30, he also said that Iran “will take any necessary action in this regard.”
A similar view was voiced by Iran’s ground forces commander Brigadier General Kioumars Heydari who told local TV: “We respect good neighbourly relations but we do not tolerate the presence of Zionist regime (Israeli) elements and Islamic State terrorists in the region,”
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, the highest official in the country, took to Twitter on October 3 to defend Iran’s war games on border amid heightened tension with Azerbaijan.
“The issues concerning Iran’s northwestern neighbors should be resolved wisely by relying on nations, through the cooperation of the armies of neighboring countries & by avoiding the presence of any foreign military forces.”
He wrote the same tweet in the Azerbaijani language an hour later.
Secretary of the Iranian Supreme National Security Council, also warned Iran’s neighbors against “foreign influence” in a tweet published in Persian, Arabic, English and Hebrew on October 3.
“Powerful #Iran has always been benevolent to its neighbors & never posed a threat to them,” wrote Shamkhani on Twitter. “Problems will be resolved with the cooperation of all countries in region [sic]. Any foreign influence is fruitless so we call on neighbors to be vigilant in this regard & to stay away from them.”
The military drills come amid escalation of tension between the two countries. The tension has been around Azerbaijan’s recent restriction of Iranian truck drivers’ entry into Armenian-controlled parts of Nagorno-Karabakh where Iran sends fuel. Azerbaijan detained two Iranian truck drivers in September.
Israel’s close ties with Azerbaijan has also been a source of tension between Baku and Tehran. Azerbaijan in turn has occasionally accused Iran of helping Armenia.
