Azerbaijan-Iran Relations

Baku has said it before and now it says it again: Azerbaijan will not become a launching pad for an Israeli attack on Iran, so, naysayers, check your sources.

On December 2, the British Sunday Times ran a story on supposed plans by Tel-Aviv to use Azerbaijani bases to send off terminator drones into Iran if there is an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear sites and if Tehran moves to respond to it. The drone fleet would lay to waste Iran’s missile system before the Islamic Republic can pull out its guns, the paper said, citing unnamed sources.

The Sunday Times even had all the technical details. Israeli-made Heron drones will be supposedly used to deliver US Hellfire missiles, it claimed. Azerbaijan purchased the unmanned aerial vehicles earlier this year, a purchase which rounded many eyes in neighboring Iran.

In response, Azerbaijan claimed that The Sunday Times was essentially delirious. “Baku will never let anyone use its territory for an attack on our neighbors,” asserted foreign ministry spokesperson Elman Abdulayev, ANSPress.com reported.

Azerbaijan’s relations with fellow Muslim neighbor may be less than neighborly, but since Iran is home to millions of ethnic Azeris, Baku repeatedly has said it would never get pulled into a conflict with Iran.

Cantankerous neighbors Iran and Azerbaijan are at a stage when nitpicking is a gratifying exercise and even a song blasting in one neighbor’s house can get the other nettled. Particularly when sung in the language of an enemy.

And so, an online video featuring Middle East pop icon Googoosh performing an Azeri song in Armenian did not escape the watchful eyes of Azerbaijan’s state copyright agency.

The agency could not locate the domicile of Googoosh (not to be confused with GooGoosha, Uzbek President Islam Karimov’s daughter and Central Asia’s Madonna), who left Iran after a ban on female singers. So, instead, the agency alerted YouTube and other video-sharing websites about what it charged was an egregious breach of copyright, Azerbaijani news agency APA reported.

“[I]f you sing a song in another language, you should credit the nation and the author, to which the song belongs,” explained Azerbaijani copyright officials.

Critic of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad though Googoosh may be, an Azeri song sung in Armenian is never music to Azerbaijani ears; especially if performed by an Iranian with Azeri roots.  

The Azerbaijanis have long been vexed by Iran’s friendship with their enemy, Armenia, and Azerbaijani and Iranian state-controlled media both have an eye peeled for any misstep that can be associated with the other side -- however remotely. Now, looks like Googoosh's song has provided an unintentional musical score for the spat.