Iran expels 4 Azeri diplomats in retaliatory move

Iran is said to have made the move in response to the expulsion of four Iranian diplomats by the Republic of Azerbaijan.

Baku declared the Iranian diplomats as persona non grata and told them to leave Azerbaijan in April.

Tensions have been high between Iran and Azerbaijan over Baku’s decision to allow Israel to gain a foothold in the former Soviet republic. Iran and the Republic of Azerbaijan are also divided over the latter’s push for carving out a corridor that would link it to the Nagorno Karabakh region but this will come at a cost for Iran and will cut off the Islamic Republic’s only border with Armenia.

Tehran is strongly opposed to such a move and has said that it will not allow any change in the geopolitical map of the region.

Also in January, an armed attack by a man on the Azeri embassy in Tehran that killed a diplomatic staffer made matters worse.

Iran arrested the attacker and said he had personal motives to do the attack. The man himself said he attacked the embassy because the Azerbaijani authorities ignored his requests for information about his wife who had earlier gone to Azerbaijan without his consent.

But Azerbaijan rejects this. Following the incident, Azerbaijan recalled most of its diplomats from Iran.