news.az, Azerbaijan
Jan 7 2010

Increase in the number of Iranian migrants is a serious threat to Azerbaijan
Thu 07 January 2010 | 06:38 GMT Text size:

Aliyar Safarli News.Az interviews Aliyar Safarli, former Azerbaijani
ambassador in Iran.

Iran will unilaterally abolish the visa regime for Azerbaijani
citizens from February. How do you assess this step?

I think Iran expects us to abolish the visa regime for Iranian
citizens too. Iran is a country that will never do anything if there
is benefit for its In the result of the abolition of the visa regime
to Iran the number of our citizens visiting our country will rise not
significantly. I can say for sure that we should protect Azerbaijan
from possible provocations by Iran.

Tehran is really counting on mutual steps with the Azerbaijani side.
Why do you think Azerbaijan does not abolish visa regime with Iran?

Today Azerbaijan lives in conditions of neither peace nor war. In this
situation we cannot open our borders and abolish visa regime
especially for the Iranian citizens. Too many drugs are supplied here
from Iran. The matter is not only drugs. The most threatening for us
in this situation are ideological provocations from Iran. There are
many Iranian public and humanitarian organizations in Azerbaijan that
are strengthening their net and holding destructive work. In this
situation we cannot abolish the visa regime for Iran. Today our
mosques are widely advocating sympathy towards Shiism while in reality
by doing so they are spreading the idea of pan-farsism. I often meet
the citizens of my country and my closest people who are pan-Farsists
and I think they completely lack the Azerbaijani and Turkic
self-consciousness.

Therefore, to protect Azerbaijan, we need to think seriously about it.
Moreover, if we abolish the visa regime for Iran and tomorrow there
will be a war for its nuclear program in this country, a great number
of Iranian citizens will flow to Azerbaijan which will create obvious
problems for us. Moreover, Iran is holding work on export of Islamic
revolution in Azerbaijan. The example is the events in Nardaran. Iran
is also preparing a `surprise’ for Azerbaijan, preparing Iranian
passports for the population of Nakhchivan. Such Iranization of the
population of Azerbaijan is inadmissible as a step rudely violating
international norms and which can be assessed as the settlement of
Armenians on the border lands known as South Azerbaijan. It means that
while abolishing the visa regime, Iran will create conditions to
promote its goals. Therefore, I consider that Iran’s unilateral
abolition of the visa regime with Azerbaijan is not by accident. We
should take these threats into account and avert them, otherwise the
complications can be grave.

The number of Iranian migrants is currently growing in Azerbaijan. Do
they pose any threat to the Azerbaijani labor market?

Certainly, the increase in the number of Iranian migrants and their
intensification is a serious threat. On the whole, Iran is intruding
upon our science, education, our everyday life holding a huge
undermining ideological work, rejecting the Azerbaijani history and
culture. The Iranian cultural center in Baku is releasing the books
that hold such undermining work. We see it here and no one is averting
this. It seems that some mosques in Baku have already turned into
Iranian. Iran tries to raise tensions inside Azerbaijan, putting
Shiites against Sunnites. On this background, Iran is sending many of
its citizens here through whom it is going to conduct Islamic
revolution here too. Iranian Azerbaijanis also share my opinion.

Leyla Tagiyeva
News.Az