According to the Iranian Fars News Agency, the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned the Turkish ambassador to Iraq on the 11th local time to express strong protest in response to the “controversial” remarks made by Turkish President Erdoğan during his attendance in Azerbaijan.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hatibzad said on the same day that Iran had expressed strong protest to the Turkish ambassador to Iraq after Erdoğan made “interfering in others and unacceptable” remarks in Azerbaijan, and urged the Turkish government to explain this as soon as possible.
The report also said that when an official of the Iranian Foreign Ministry summoned the Turkish ambassador on the same day, he said that the era of land acquisition and imperial expansion was long over, and Iran did not allow anyone to interfere in its territorial integrity.
Within Iran, Azerbaijanis are the second largest ethnic group after the Persians. They mainly live in the provinces of East Azerbaijan and West Azerbaijan in northwest Iran, which are adjacent to Azerbaijan.
On the 10th of this month, Erdoğan read a poem about the Aras River, the border between Iran and Azerbaijan, with “separatist sentiments” while attending a military parade in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan.
Iranian Foreign Minister Zarif responded on social media on the 11th that Erdoğan’s remarks undermined Azerbaijan’s sovereignty and that no one could talk about the beloved Azerbaijani in Iran. On the 11th, the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned the Iranian ambassador to Turkey to protest against the Iranian side’s practices.
