Azerbaijan is hearing a diplomatic growl from across its southern border, which was recently violated by a lone Iranian border guard. The breach cost 20-year-old Akber Hasanpour his life and resulted in an exchange that once more laid bare the repressed antagonism between Baku and Tehran.
The Iranian authorities have fired a protest note to Baku and demanded an explanation from the Azerbaijani ambassador in Tehran. Iranian officials said that Azerbaijani border police violated international norms and agreements between the two countries by pursuing and shooting to death the unarmed Hasanpour.
After inadvertently crossing into Azerbaijani territory on October 19, the young man refused to surrender to Azerbaijani border guards, Azerbaijani news services reported. In a claim that Tehran finds hard to digest, the Azerbaijani side says that he then attacked a large detail of Azerbaijani border guards and was fired on in response. The Iranian died of his wounds in hospital. His body was handed over to Iran yesterday.
Iran has demanded that Hasanpour’s killers be brought to trial and is preparing to dispatch a fact-finding delegation to Baku.
Azerbaijan has long been wary of Tehran’s Islamic and diplomatic influence in the region; not to mention, its territorial ambitions in the Caspian Sea.
Iran, for its part, long has claimed that it only wants peace and happiness in the South Caucasus, and, to illustrate its good intentions, repeatedly has offered to mediate in the longstanding Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia, an Iranian ally. The latest such overture came five days ago.
But with the outcry over the Hasanpour incident growing louder, even less chance that Baku will give Tehran an ear now.
Giorgi Lomsadze is a journalist based in Tbilisi, and author of Tamada Tales.
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