TEHRAN -- Iran’s president says Tehran and Baku have inseparable historical relations and will not allow those relations to be affected by the two countries’ ill-wishers.
Ebrahim Raisi made the remarks during a phone call with his Azeri counterpart, Ilham Aliyev, late Saturday. The conversation came a day after Azerbaijan’s embassy in Tehran was the target of a deadly attack.
During the phone call, Raisi conveyed condolences of the Iranian government and nation to the Azeri head of state.
He said the friendly and brotherly relations between Iran and Azerbaijan are based on indivisible cultural and historical connections.
“The governments of Iran and Azerbaijan will not allow the mutual relations to be influenced by the two nations’ ill-wishers,” he added.
President Raisi affirmed that the relevant Iranian government bodies are investigating the various aspects of the tragic incident.
For his part, the Azeri president expressed gratitude to Raisi for his sympathy with the Azeri government and people over the incident.
“This was an unexpected crime,” Aliyev said, adding, “However, the two countries’ cooperation on this issue should be such that nobody would be allowed to use such incidents to disrupt the two countries’ friendly relations.”
Iranian Foreign Minister Hussein Amir-Abdollahian also condemned the attack on Azerbaijan’s embassy in Tehran, saying the enemies should not be allowed to take advantage of the incident, which he said was not an act of terrorism.
“We should not allow this incident to have any adverse effect on ties between the two countries,” Amir-Abdollahian said in a phone conversation with Azerbaijan’s Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov on Friday.
The Iranian foreign minister expressed his sympathy with Bayramov over the attack, which killed the head of the security service of the embassy and wounded two embassy guards earlier in the day.