Erdogan Triggers Iran-Turkey Crisis With Quote From Poem

With a single quote from a poem, Erdogan triggers a crisis between Iran and Turkey

A poem read by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan sparked a diplomatic crisis between Iran and Turkey. The poem “Aras, Aras” refers to the division of the Azeri settlement area along the Aras River, which today forms the border between Iran and Azerbaijan. Iran saw Erdogan’s conference as an attack on its sovereign rights over its northern provinces. The issue appeared on the front pages of Iranian newspapers on Saturday.

The border was established in the Treaty of Turkmanchai in 1828 after Persia was defeated by Russia. The area to the north of the river was assigned to Russia, the area to the south remained with Persia.

Out of resentment, the foreign ministers of the two states, Mohammed Jawad Sarif and Mevlüt Cavusoglu, phoned on Saturday night. According to a report by the Iranian state news agency IRNA, the differences were resolved. According to Sarif, Tehran wants to continue the good and cordial relationship between the Iranian leadership and Erdogan. According to IRNA, Cavusoglu said that Erdogan respected Iran’s territorial integrity and was not aware that the poem would generate sensitivities in Iran in this regard.

Erdogan had quoted the poem in his speech at Azerbaijan’s victory parade after the war against Armenia in Nagorno Karabakh on Thursday in Baku. In protest, Iran’s Foreign Ministry summoned the Turkish ambassador to Tehran on Friday. Then Turkey reacted by summoning the Iranian ambassador for insulting Erdogan.

“Didn’t he (Erdogan) know that with this poem he was questioning the sovereignty of Iran?” Asked Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammed Jawad Sarif. “No one” can talk like this about the Iranian provinces of East and West Azerbaijan and Ardabil. The three provinces are “an Iranian fortress and an inseparable part of the country.”

Erdogan’s spokesman, Fahrettin Altun, responded on Saturday: “We condemn the aggressive remarks about our president and our country under the pretext of a poem.” The Iranian government is trying to distort the context of the verses.

In Iran, there are more than eleven million Azeris in the eastern and western provinces of Azerbaijan, Ardabil in the northeast of the country, and Sanjan, Hamedan and Ghazvin in western and central Iran. In addition to Persian, they speak Azeri, which is similar to the Turkish language. Many Azeris in Iran are successful entrepreneurs and most of the country’s supermarkets are run by them. There are no serious discussions in Iran about the union of the Azeri provinces with the Republic of Azerbaijan. (sda / dpa)