The following is from Azerbaijan’s Trend News Agency. It is unsigned. After this summer’s Baku Declaration issued by Azerbaijan, Turkey and Pakistan and the ensuing strategic military partnership with the three nations, Baku has felt emboldened to issue threats right and left to any and all regional nations. Just a few days ago it once again chastised Russia, in the latest instance for using the words Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh on a map. The Putin government, as usual, capitulated and removed the reference. Azerbaijanis are the second-largest ethnic group in Iran and by the tone of the article the following excerpts appear in, it may only be a matter of time before Ilham Aliyev tells his “strategic partner” Vladimir Putin to change the name on part of the map of Iran as well.

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In August of 2021, reports, which became available to Trend, said that a lot of Iranian trucks are illegally entering the zone in Azerbaijan’s Karabakh, where Russian peacekeepers are temporarily stationed.

[On] August 11 of 2021, Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs called the Ambassador of Iran in Azerbaijan Seyyed Abbas Mousavi.

The ambassador was handed a note and the MFA expressed serious concern about the illegal steps taken by the Iranian side in relation to Azerbaijan. The reason was weighty – the illegal transportation of goods by Iranian trucks to Karabakh region of Azerbaijan. The ambassador was unambiguously told that Azerbaijan is seriously concerned about such facts, and this undoubtedly cast a shadow on the Azerbaijani-Iranian relations.

“The note expresses our dissatisfaction with the constant entry of various vehicles belonging to the friendly Islamic Republic of Iran into the Karabakh region of Azerbaijan without the permission of Baku. Our discontent, which some time ago was verbally conveyed to the Iranian side, was again raised before the ambassador during the meeting,” the press service of the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry said.

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One month has passed by. Has the Iranian side took [taken] the necessary actions to solve the issue? On the contrary!

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Also, according to the information we received, Iranians and Armenians resort to various tricks. For example, when approaching the zone of temporary responsibility of the Russian peacekeepers, they put Armenian plates on Iranian trucks in order to hide the exact number of Iranian trucks heading to Khankendi….

So, what does Iran have to say about this? Will it again cry about friendship, while behaving totally different?…

And if this happens in peaceful times, before our eyes, it is [difficult?] to even imagine what the Iranians did during the second Karabakh War and during almost 30 years of occupation of our lands!…Iranians during the years of the occupation of Karabakh actively bought everything that was destroyed and dismantled by Armenian vandals – stones, bricks, roofs from the houses of Azerbaijanis and buildings, pipes. They didn’t even skip the household utensils of the Azerbaijanis expelled from their homes.

If the Iranians are bringing fuel and lubricants to Karabakh even today, when the Lachin corridor is under Azerbaijan’s control…so, does this mean than Armenian tanks were being fueled by Iran during hostilities?

It should also be reminded about the recent visit of Iranian Ambassador to Armenia, Abbas Badakhshan Zokhuri, to the border area. Then the ambassador, expressed concern about the continuation of border disputes between the two countries….As we can see, the unfriendly behavior of our southern neighbor has not changed.

It is also appropriate to remind that back in August Iranians actively recruited their citizens to work in Karabakh, in the zone where Russian peacekeepers are temporarily stationed.

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Obviously, Iranian rhetoric and provocations leave no doubt that Iran…is throwing a certain challenge to Azerbaijan. A choice that does not bring anything good for itself in the first place.

In this context we can overlook the somewhat strange behavior of Russian peacekeepers, operating under a non-existent mandate. The Iranians and Armenians are doing all this right before their eyes. What does this mean? It means the Russians either don’t control the situation with the Lachin corridor as they should (which is hard to believe), or they’re just turning a blind eye….

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Azerbaijan sees everything, documents it, and makes relevant conclusions. We’ve presented the Iranian side with specific facts that cannot be refuted. Gone are the days when Iranian companies were illegally rebuilt the upper Govhar Agha mosque in Shusha, “transforming” it from Azerbaijani to Persian, and Tehran was cynically denying this. Today we see everything. How will Iran now answer to the Azerbaijani people?