On Saturday, head of Iranian Parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, Mojtaba Dhu al-Nuri, said that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan could face a similar demise as Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, unless he apologizes to the Iranian people over his meddlesome remarks during a visit to Azerbaijan on Thursday.
In a tweet, the Iranian MP Dhu Al-Nuri said, “If Erdogan had not failed in literature, geography and history, he would have realized that the poem he recited had been written in lament the separation of Azerbaijan (now the Republic of Azerbaijan) from the motherland of Iran. Let Erdogan learn from Saddam’s fate.
On Friday, the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned the Turkish ambassador to Tehran and handed him a letter of protest against the statements of Turkish President, which it described as "intrusive and unacceptable in the affairs of the Islamic Republic.
Erdogan was in the Azeri capital Baku to review a military parade marking Azerbaijan’s victory over Armenia in a war over the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave that ended last month.
The Turkish president recited an Azeri-Iranian poem about the pision of Azerbaijan’s territory between Russia and Iran in the 19th century. Tehran appeared concerned about his remarks could fan separatism among Iran’s Azeri minority.
“The Turkish ambassador was informed that the era of territorial claims and expansionist empires is over,” Iran’s Foreign Ministry said on its website on Friday.
“Iran does not allow anyone to meddle in its territorial integrity.”
Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif tweeted earlier: “President Erdogan was not informed that what he ill-recited in Baku refers to the forcible separation of areas … from [the] Iranian motherland.”
“NO ONE can talk about OUR beloved Azerbaijan,” Zarif said, referring to the northwest region of Iran where many of its ethnic Azeris live.
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