Your trusted source

According to the Iranian information agency ISNA, Ayatollah Seyyed Hassan Ameli, the representative of Iran’s religious leader in IRI state Ardabil, issued his next report about the Islamic radical groups in Azerbaijan expressing his concern that ISIS terrorist group’s presence in Azerbaijan is a serious threat for the bordering Ardabil state of Iran.

According to reports, more than a hundred Azerbaijani militants have recently been killed in Syria over the past 2 years. Iran is concerned about the threat of the increase of ISIS terrorist group’s influence in Azerbaijan. Therefore, Iran tries to make the land border between Iran and Azerbaijan more controllable to prevent the Islamists’ possible penetration into its territory. 

Mohammad Ali Taheri, the commander of the border patrol of state Ardabil, Iran recently said that the Iranian side is taking up the necessary measures to ensure the impenetrability of the borders by modernizing the infrastructures in the border districts Bile Savar, Garmi, Meshkin shahr and Pars Abad.

Only a few days before the senior Iran cleric expressed his concern about the ISIS’s presence in Azerbaijan, the Iranian media had reported that about 30 tank units belonging to Azerbaijan – some of them being Israeli-made – approached Bile Savar and Pars Abad districts bordering Iran.  

Although the climate of security around Iran has slightly improved due to the progress in the settlement of the county’s nuclear issue, the possibility of the beginning of military actions or at least the rise of instability within the country are not excluded given that the nuclear issue is not finally resolved.

Against the backdrop of Iran’s tangible results in the fight against the ISIS militants in Iraq, it is not excluded that the militants will this time try to penetrate into Iran through Azerbaijan’s territory.

The April 20 visit of the Minister of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics of Iran, Hossein Dehghan, to Azerbaijan was aimed at getting clear explanations from the Azerbaijani side regarding the above-mentioned threats.

During the Baku visit of the head of Iran’s defense agency, an agreement has been reached with the Azerbaijani side to form a joint committee for military cooperation.

Taking into consideration the close military cooperation established between Israel and Azerbaijan and it’s tendency to strengthen, this committee is assumingly being created on Iran’s initiative so that it is able to fully control the situation in case military actions are carried out in Azerbaijan against ISIS militants. The reason is that, as the past three years of Iran-Azerbaijan relations have shown, Tehran has always been cautious with the Azerbaijani authorities’ statements that their territory will not be used during the possible attack against Iran, for the Azerbaijani officials’ statements concerning Iran and their actions have always contradicted each other.

Armen Israyelyan, Iranian studies expert