Iran says embassy attack should not affect Azerbaijan relations

Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi has told his Azerbaijani counterpart that bilateral relations should not be affected after an attack on Baku’s embassy in Tehran that left one person dead.

The attack took place on Friday when a man rushed the embassy with an assault rifle and opened fire, killing the head of the security staff and injuring two other guards.

Raisi and President Ilham Aliyev had a phone call on Saturday to discuss the issue, during which the Iranian president expressed his condolences and said an investigation is under way.“The governments of Iran and Azerbaijan will not allow bilateral relations to be affected by the suggestions of those who wish ill on the two nations,” Raisi was quoted as saying on his official website.

The Iranian president’s website also quoted Aliyev as saying “this was an unexpected crime, but cooperation between the two countries on this must be in a way that no one will find an opportunity to disrupt friendly bilateral relations using such incidents as an excuse”.

CCTV footage released by Iran showed the attacker hurriedly arriving at the scene with his car and crashing into another vehicle parked in front of the embassy.

After exiting the car with the rifle in hand, he passes an unarmed Iranian guard sitting in a booth and enters the embassy shooting. While shooting at two Azerbaijani guards, a third tackles him, eventually disarming the attacker.

Aliyev had immediately condemned the incident as a “terrorist act” while the Azerbaijani foreign ministry summoned Iran’s envoy to Baku and said it will evacuate its diplomatic staff.

Top officials in Tehran, meanwhile, repeatedly said the attack did not constitute a “terrorist” act as it was carried out with personal motivations.