TEHRAN USES KARABAKH ISSUE AS “TRAMP CARD” AFTER UNREST – AZERI ACTIVIST
Yeni Musavat, Baku
7 Jun 06
The press secretary of the World Azerbaijani Congress, Ali Nicat,
has said that Tehran is trying to exert pressure on Azerbaijan, by
using Karabakh as its “tramp card”, the Baku-based opposition paper
Yeni Musavat has reported.
In an interview with the paper on 7 June, Nicat said that “the Persian
regime started to doubt Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity after the
developments in southern Azerbaijan”.
Quoting sources in northwestern Iran, Nicat said that “Iranian state
TV channel Iran TV-1 insulted the dignity of Azerbaijanis in its
newscast in the afternoon of 5 June. The TV channel carried a report
on the Bucharest meeting between [Azerbaijani President] Ilham Aliyev
and [Armenian President] Robert Kocharyan and later dwelled on the
Karabakh problem. It said that ‘the independent Nagornyy Karabakh
republic announced its independence 15 years ago. However, Azerbaijan
has territorial claims to the independent Nagornyy Karabakh republic.”
In reaction to the issue in question, a spokesman for the Iranian
embassy in Baku told Yeni Musavat: “The official position of our state
on this issue is known. I do not think that anything like this will
happen. We cannot comment on the remarks by every passer-by. If you
have facts, we will be happy to discuss them.”
Yeni Musavat said that the Southern Azerbaijan information centre had
been set up in Baku on 6 June to keep the public properly informed
about the developments in northwestern Iran.