Tensions grow with Azerbaijan as Iran moves forces to border

• Published date: 30 September 2021
• Author: TZVI JOFFRE
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

In August, the Azerbaijan Foreign Ministry invited the Iranian Ambassador to Azerbaijan, due to "undesirable facts" concerning what it called illegal travel of Iranian trucks to the Karabakh region without the permission of Azerbaijan. A statement by the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry stated that the new Iranian administration would take steps to end such incidents.

The trucks in question were traveling on a road between the Armenian towns of Kapan and Goris which partially crosses through territory handed over to Azerbaijan after the Nagorno-Karabakh war last year, according to RFE/RL. The highway, patrolled by Russian peacekeepers, is Armenia's only link to Iran.

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Earlier this month, Azerbaijani forces set up a checkpoint and began taxing and inspecting Iranian commercial trucks traveling on the highway, according to RFE/RL. A number of Iranian truck drivers were even arrested.

Azerbaijani officials have stated that Azerbaijani law requires all foreign vehicles, not just Iranian ones, entering the country to pay road and transit fees.

In an interview with the Turkish Anadolu Agency on Tuesday, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev expressed outrage at the continued travel of Iranian trucks through Azerbaijani territory, questioning why Iran was so insistent on continuing trade to a region with only 25,000 inhabitants.

"Is this market really so important? Is this trade really so important that you show such outright disrespect for a country you consider friendly and fraternal?" said Aliyev to Anadolu Agency.

Tensions also rose recently due to joint military exercises carried out by Azerbaijan and Turkey in the Caspian Sea, with the Iranian Foreign Ministry warning that such drills violated international conventions banning the military presence of countries other than the five states which border the sea.

In the interview with Anadolu Agency, the Azerbaijani president expressed shock at Iran's decision to hold a military exercise along its border, saying it was the first time in Azerbaijan's 30-year history of independence that this had occurred.

While Aliyev admitted that every country has the sovereign right to conduct military exercises in its own territory, he questioned why Iran chose this specific time to do so. The president stressed that he does "not wish to see a single fact that would undermine long-term...