TEHRAN - Chairman of the Chiefs of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Major General Muhammad Baqeri in a meeting with Azerbaijan’s Minister of Defense Colonel General Zakir Hasanov on Tuesday said the Zionist regime is the root cause of discord in the region and poses a threat to the security and stability of all regional countries.
He stressed the importance of more consultations between the Iranian and Azerbaijani officials to prevent misunderstandings, adding, “Our principled stance is to solve issues in the region by regional countries without any foreign interference.”
The top commander said the territorial integrity of all countries must be respected and that Iran is sensitive about the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan.
Baqeri expressed hope that the visit by the Azerbaijani defense minister would present an opportunity for both sides to strengthen defense, technical and military cooperation.
The Iranian commander said the liberation of Azerbaijan’s occupied territories in a war with neighboring Armenia following some three decades pleased Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei and the people of Iran.
Baqeri further reiterated the Islamic Republic’s policy on the expansion of relations with neighbors, saying Iran and Azerbaijan have many commonalities in history, religion, language, among other things, and Iranians feel close to the fellow Muslim nation in Azerbaijan.
He expressed Iran’s readiness to participate in the projects to reconstruct liberated territories of Azerbaijan.
Armenia and Azerbaijan fought a six-week war in 2020 in which Azeri troops drove Armenian forces out of swathes of territory they had long controlled in and around the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave.
Although the fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh, which is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, ended in a Russian-brokered ceasefire, clashes on the border have persisted at irregular intervals, occasionally causing fatalities.
Elsewhere in his remarks, Baqeri warned that the terrorists in Syria and Iraq have been defeated but not eliminated, saying, “These terrorists are trying to boost their presence in the region, including in Afghanistan, the Caucasus and the Central Asia.”
The top Iranian commander urged regional countries to strengthen their cooperation to counter terrorism.

Iran, Azerbaijan Set to
Construct Border Bridge

On Tuesday, Iranian Deputy Minister of Road and Urban Development Kheirollah Khademi and his Azeri counterpart Rahman Hummatov signed an agreement to construct a road bridge on Astarachay River running along the joint border.
On the second day of the visit of Rostam Ghasemi, Iran’s Minister of Roads and Urban Development and his accompanying delegation to the Republic of Azerbaijan, an agreement on the construction of a large bridge over the Astarachay River on the shared border between the two countries was signed in Baku.
Meanwhile, the director-general for the company of construction and development of transportation infrastructures in the north of Iran Hassan Kalhori said that the Astara-Astara border bridge will be built as per a previously signed agreement between Iran and Azerbaijan.
Vehicles can travel on the bridge that will be built over the Astrachai River on the shared border between two countries.
“The construction of this bridge was agreed by the two sides a couple of years ago”, the Iranian economic official said, adding that the bridge “will develop the transportation and tourism industries of the two countries.”
“The expansion and facilitation of transit between Iran and Azerbaijan is the other purpose of constructing the bridge that will be constructed in parallel with the joint railway bridge between the two countries,” Kalhori added.