Tehran Friday Prayer Imam Says US Defeated In West Asia

Referring to a reporter’s question on whether recent Iranian military maneuvers would “escalate into a hot crisis” in the Caucasus, Erdogan said he had "no such expectation," according to a government English-language news release.

Because of Baku’s relations with Israel, “Iran will not be hostile to Azerbaijan or put Azerbaijan on the target list” because its own Azaris were “noticeable,” the president said.

During the 2020 conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia, some among Iran’s Azaris, around a quarter of the 80 million population, expressed sympathy for Baku’s cause.

But Erdogan, speaking to reporters on a plane returning from an African tour also played down tensions between Iran and Azerbaijan, which relaxed this week with Thursday’s release of two Iranian truck drivers arrested on a transit route to Armenia now under Azerbaijani control.

"It is not that simple,” the president said. “What has been done thus far [by Iran] is inappropriate, and I believe that Iran's new administration will not repeat this misstep.”

The first to fall in

Iranian authorities have not commented on Erdogan’s remarks, the first from a senior Turkish figure on Iran's military drills near the Turkish border and the recent standoff between Tehran and Baku. Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on October 3 highlighteda reported Israeli military presence in Azerbaijan and appeared to refer to Turkey's role in warning that "the person who digs a well [to trap] for his brothers is the first one to fall into it."

Iran is also concerned at the reported presence of jihadist fighters from Syria in Azerbaijani territory allegedly recruited by Turkey to help Baku in its war against ethnic Armenians in and around Nagorno-Karabakh during last year's conflict. Turkey and Azerbaijan have denied the allegation.

The Turkish president's comments came as tensions between Tehran and Baku appeared to ease since last week’s phone-call between the Iranian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers. In a meeting with lawmakers from East and West Azarbaijan provinces Thursday, President Ebrahim Raisi (Raeesi) stressed that good relations with neighboring countries was a government priority, and that Iran would not allow Israel to sabotage them.

In a December 2020 speech to a victory parade in Baku after the Azerbaijan-Armenia war,

Erdogan recited a folk poem, popular both in both Azerbaijan and the Iranian Azari provinces, lamenting the division of the ethnic Azari by the river Aras separating Azerbaijan and Armenia from Iran.

Sultan of illusion

Iran's foreign ministry summoned the Turkish ambassador, while foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif reacted with uncharacteristic vigor. Much of the Iranian media dubbed the Turkish president the 'Sultan of illusion.'

Erdogan also in the speech referred to "one nation, two states," citing Turkey and Azerbaijan’s shared linguistic heritage. "One nation" is often used by pan-Turks to express the unity of speakers of all Turkic languages, across central Asia and including Azerbaijan and Iran’s north-west Azari-populated northwest.

Pan-Turkism has been on the rise among Azari (Torki) speakers of Iran in the past two decades. Separatist groups call Iran’s northwestern regions ‘South Azerbaijan.’ The Turkic languages spoken in Iran's northwest and some other parts of Iran have fed a movement advocating unification of speakers in Iran and the Republic of Azerbaijan, whose territory was part of Iran until the early nineteenth century when ceded to the Russian empire.

Hassan Kazemi-Ghomi who was appointed as Raisi’s point-man on Afghanistan told Iran’s state broadcaster that it would be possible for Tehran to reach agreement with the Taliban over water sharing issues and prevention of narcotics smuggling.

He added that Afghanistan is currently affected by security crisis and Iran should “consider priorities and prevailing condition.” Kazemi-Ghomi repeated statements made earlier by Iranian officials that there is a “foreign conspiracy” to plunge regional countries in conflict and Iran should try to “emerge from this situation”.

Meanwhile, Hassan Hemmati, a member of parliament’s national security committee has said that if Taliban can provide security and protect the rights of all religious groups “It would be possible to have normal relations with them” guided by Iran;s national interests.

Since the Taliban takeover, Tehran has been cautiously suggesting that the Islamic militant group has changed, and they are the de-facto rulers of Afghanistan. It has also avoided supporting anti-Taliban rebels. But Iran has also insisted that the Taliban respect the rights of religious and ethnic minorities, particularly Shiites.

Javan daily newspaper published a commentary by Hadi Mohammadi on Thursday that the United States is using the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to monitor Iran's nuclear activities and to inspect its nuclear installations on its behalf, based on the authority vested in the UN nuclear watchdog by the Non-Proliferation Protocol (NPT) and some of the clauses in the Iran nuclear deal, JCPOA.

The United States and the West benefit from the intelligence gathered by the IAEA for them free of charge, Mohammadi claimed in the commentary. Meanwhile, he opined that this intelligence gathering mechanism was badly harmed with the reduction in Iran's commitments under the JCPOA. However, the IAEA Chief is trying to get back the initial concessions given to the West by the JCPOA, Javan maintained.

Last December, Iran passed a law limiting IAEA’s monitoring access to its nuclear sites, demanding that the US should lift its sanctions. A limited and temporary deal is in place now, but Grossi has complained that Iran is curtailing his agency’s ability to do its job.

The commentary further stressed that in fact, it is the United States that is under ‘maximum pressure’ by Iran to return to the negotiations as it has failed to force Iran to make new concessions.

Javan insisted that there is no room for the inclusion of talks about Iran's missile programs in the new negotiations, and the West can only hope to harness Iran's nuclear program, but it needs to give concessions to make that possible.

It described Grossi's call for having a political discussion with Iran's Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian as naïve and warned the IAEA chief that Iran is not under any commitment to go beyond the discussion of technical matters within the frameworks of NPT. Mohammadi added that Grossi should know that the members of Tehran's new negotiating team are different from their predecessors.

The commentary said that Grossi can only talk with Iran's nuclear chief Mohammad Eslami rather than hoping to meet with the foreign minister. "He should distance himself from the idea of holding talks in Iran by proxy for the United States," the commentary said, adding that a chat with Eslami is the most he can get if he visits Tehran. The US, said the commentary, should forget about the division of labor with Grossi and instead should make concessions.

Meanwhile, in another article entitled "Winding in Washington," another IRGC media outlet likened Grossi to a clock that Washington has winded to make its moves in Tehran. This article also repeated the argument of the commentary about Grossi being used by the US as a tool to exert pressure on Tehran before starting the talks to revive the JCPOA.

The article added that Washington is also planning to use Grossi to exert pressure on other countries, including China, via the International Atomic Energy Agency. This was a reference to US officials' statements about asking China to stop buying oil from Iran.

Grossi asked to meet with Amirabdollahian following his meetings with US officials including Secretary of State Antony Blinken this week. During the meeting, Blinken said that Iran should remain committed to the verification of its nuclear activities, stop provocative actions and return to diplomacy.

Subsequently, Grossi told the Financial Times Monday that "a temporary arrangement for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to monitor Iran’s nuclear sites was no longer intact." Grossi told the newspaper he wanted "an urgent meeting – 'contact at the political level' − with Iran’s foreign minister Hossein Amirabdollahian to discuss surveillance arrangements."

“I haven’t been able to talk to [Iran’s new] foreign minister,” Grossi told the FT. “I need to have this contact at the political level. This is indispensable. Without it, we cannot understand each other.”

Bennett stressed the importance of the relationship between Israel and Russia, highlighting the "million" Russian speakers who live in the country.

Bennett’s predecessor, Benjamin Netanyahu regularly had meetings with Putin to regulate their interactions regarding Syria.

Bennett also confirmed Israel's international status was "significantly strengthening" and was progressing well.

Bennett will meet Putin to discuss political, security and economic issues, including the Iran nuclear program.

The two countries operate a military hotline to coordinate air force operations over Syria to avoid clashes.

Israel often attacks Iranian-linked targets in Syria, while Russia has provided protection for the Bashar al-Assad’s government in Syria.

Russia is one of the international parties that negotiated a 2015 nuclear deal with Iran.

The deal fell apart after then-President Donald Trump withdrew in 2018.

But the new US administration is now trying to revive the deal that would lift sanctions and offer a lifeline to the Islamic Republic — a step that Israel, Saudi Arabia and others in the region oppose.

Nour News, a website close to Supreme National Security Council Secretary Ali Shamkhani, reported Thursday morning that the two truck drivers had been handed over to the Iranian embassy in Baku and were preparing to leave the country.

Reflecting eased tensions between the two countries, Azerbaijan said its decision to free the drivers was "guided by principles of humanitarianism, mutual respect, and good neighborliness."

The move followed a phone-call between Iranian foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and his Azeri counterpart Jeyhun Bayramov October 13 during which the two sides agreed to put a stop to "harmful rhetoric" and resolve problems through dialogue.

Iran’s Roads and Transportation Agency ordered transport companies Wednesday to "comply with the laws" and "take the sensitivities of [Azerbaijan] into consideration” given its acquisition of territory from Armenia during the 44-day Nagorno-Karabakh conflict of 2020. This, the agency said, would require Iranian drivers to avoid the Armenian-populated Karabakh enclave of Azerbaijan when travelling through Armenia.

Nour News on Wednesday said "lack of due diligence of some private transportation companies" had given "certain anti-Iranian factions” in Azerbaijan “an excuse" against Iran and had led to Baku making "verbal challenges…[that] are not in either country's interests."

Nour News welcomed the communique from the Roads and Transportation Agency, which it said would “block the path to any squabbles by those opposed to [good] relations between the two countries and certain third parties while illustrating Iran's official and constant stance of respect for the territorial integrity of the Republic of Azerbaijan.”

Baku restricted Iranian access to Armenia along roads it captured from Armenian forces last year, but Iran-Azerbaijan relations have been remained strained since the war when Tehran was alarmed by reports of Turkey deploying militant Sunni fighters recruited in Syria to join Azerbaijani forces. Tehran has been long been concerned over Azerbaijan’s relationship with Israel, an oil customer, and reports that Baku has allowed Israeli access to its airspace.

After the arrest of the two Iranian truck drivers, officials and media in both countries ramped up critical rhetoric. Iran held extensive military drills near the border area after military drills between Turkey, Azerbaijan and Pakistan.