Iran’s foreign ministry on Tuesday responded to Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev who voiced discontent with Tehran’s decision to hold exercises near its border and questioned the timing of the drills hinting that it may be in response to Baku’s actions toward Iranian truck drivers who are traveling to Armenia.
In an interview with the Turkish Anadolu news agency, Aliyev voiced concern about military drills being held in southwestern Iran, along Azerbaijan’s border.
“Such a thing has not happened in the 30 years of our independence,” said Aliyev who added that every country has a right to hold military drills as its sovereign right.
“But when we analyze it within the timeline, we see that such a thing has never happened. Why right now? Why right on our border?,” pondered Aliyev who was quick to say that Tehran was reacting emotionally to Azerbaijan’s decision to impose a “road tax” on Iranian truck drivers on the Armenia-Iran interstate highway.
Azerbaijani forces, last week, began stopping Iranian trucks on the Goris-Kapan highway and imposing taxes of the truck drivers, whose transport of cargo to Armenia has been delayed, posing challenges for Iran-Armenia trade.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said on Tuesday that the military drills held in northwest of Iran were a sovereignty issue and were held to fortify peace and stability in the region, the state IRNA news agency reported.
Khatibzadeh said Aliyev’s remarks were perplexing given the fact that the foreign ministers of the two countries met last week on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly and discussed those issues during the meeting.
Khatibzadeh went on to say that Iran has always rejected any type of territorial occupation and emphasized the need for respecting territorial integrity of countries and internationally recognized borders.
The foreign ministry spokesperson said that Iran expects its neighbors to observe the principle of advancing neighborly relations, which Tehran considers a priority.
Khatibzadeh explained that the border drills were designed to ensure Iran’s border security in the event of a potential Israeli attack.
This is an opportunity for Iran with its nearly one million-man army to give coward Aliyev, emboldened only by assistance from the Turkish terrorist Er-dog-an, a preview of what is awaiting him should he continue his belligerent activities in the region. In the recent years, all anti-Iranian criminal activities, such as the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists, have been initiated by the agents of Iran’s arch-enemy Israel from the territory of artificial Azerbaijan republic. Just like Aliyev’s criminal step-brother Er-dog-an whose troops invaded Syria under the pretext of going after the Kurdish militia targeting Turkey, so should Iran invade artificial Azerbaijan territory for Aliyev allowing Israelis set up base there and conduct criminal activities against Iran.
This is a perfectly legitimate cause for Iran because Israel has much bigger secret plans for Iran in the near future, from artificial Azerbaijani territory, to conduct attacks on Iran’s nuclear power plants. If Iran ever takes such action, this will create a perfect opportunity for the Armenian forces to exact revenge on sadistic artificial Azerbaijani army and liberate occupied territories. We will have to wait and see!