Federal Lezghi
National and Cultural Autonomy

 

Yesterday, the president of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev had left for Iran on an official visit where he had meetings with IRI religious leader Ali Khamenei and president of the country Hassan Rouhani.

The Azerbaijani media covering Aliyev’s visit has provided either disinformation or has not referred to some of the topics.

Let’s first refer to Hassan Rouhani’s statement on Nagorno Karabakh: As the official site of IRI president http://president.ir/fa/76559 reports, during the joint press conference held after the presidents’ meeting Hassan Rouhani has touched upon the regional conflicts and has noted in particular, "We should put all our efforts in order to settle the regional conflicts, the Nagorno Karabakh conflict in that number, through peaceful means and within international norms. To us, the geographical change of borders in the region is unacceptable, for that reason we need to make efforts for the existing contradictions to be solved by a peaceful and political means.”

Expert of Iranian studies Armen Israelyan, at the interview (http://www.panorama.am/ru/interviews/2014/04/10/aliev-iran-israyelyanns-comment) given to Panorama.am had analyzed Rouhani’s statement and had noted, "The mentioned statement of Rouhani had two messages.

First: The Iranian provinces inhabited by Turkic-speaking Iranians, cannot become subject of speculation for Azerbaijan and Turkey.

Second: The de facto borders of Nagorno Karabakh Republic existing for more than two decades are not subject to change.

As for the details of the meetings held with Ilham Aliyev and Ali Khamenei, according to the Azerbaijani President’s official site http://ru.president.az/articles/11373, IRI religious leader Ali Khamenei has stated at the meeting with Ilham Aliyev that allegedly, "Iran is for the Karabakh conflict settlement in terms of territorial integrity of Azerbaijan.”

Coming to the disinformation disseminated by the Azerbaijani media it should be noted that after having studied the official site of the IRI religious leader http://farsi.khamenei.ir/news-content?id=26123 we can noticed that Ali Khamenei has not touched upon the Karabagh conflict at all.

Moreover, Ali Khamenei has warned Ilham Aliyev that "Some forces, the Zionist (Israeli) regime in that number, are dissatisfied with Iran-Azerbaijan strong relations, and continuously frustrate the process of strengthening it. However, it is possible to overcome their frustrating activities by seriousness and political will.”

By examining the official site of the Azerbaijani president we do not find the abovementioned statement made by Khamenei in the site.

Moreover, according to the official site of Ali Khamenei, in response to the observations of IRI religious leader, Ilham Aliyev has stated, "Iran’s power is Azerbaijan’s power: the strong ties of two countries will not allow the bilateral relations to get negative influence.”