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BAKU: Increase in the number of Iranian migrants a serious threat

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  • BAKU: Increase in the number of Iranian migrants a serious threat

    news.az, Azerbaijan
    Jan 7 2010


    Increase in the number of Iranian migrants is a serious threat to Azerbaijan
    Thu 07 January 2010 | 06:38 GMT Text size:


    Aliyar Safarli News.Az interviews Aliyar Safarli, former Azerbaijani
    ambassador in Iran.

    Iran will unilaterally abolish the visa regime for Azerbaijani
    citizens from February. How do you assess this step?

    I think Iran expects us to abolish the visa regime for Iranian
    citizens too. Iran is a country that will never do anything if there
    is benefit for its In the result of the abolition of the visa regime
    to Iran the number of our citizens visiting our country will rise not
    significantly. I can say for sure that we should protect Azerbaijan
    from possible provocations by Iran.

    Tehran is really counting on mutual steps with the Azerbaijani side.
    Why do you think Azerbaijan does not abolish visa regime with Iran?

    Today Azerbaijan lives in conditions of neither peace nor war. In this
    situation we cannot open our borders and abolish visa regime
    especially for the Iranian citizens. Too many drugs are supplied here
    from Iran. The matter is not only drugs. The most threatening for us
    in this situation are ideological provocations from Iran. There are
    many Iranian public and humanitarian organizations in Azerbaijan that
    are strengthening their net and holding destructive work. In this
    situation we cannot abolish the visa regime for Iran. Today our
    mosques are widely advocating sympathy towards Shiism while in reality
    by doing so they are spreading the idea of pan-farsism. I often meet
    the citizens of my country and my closest people who are pan-Farsists
    and I think they completely lack the Azerbaijani and Turkic
    self-consciousness.

    Therefore, to protect Azerbaijan, we need to think seriously about it.
    Moreover, if we abolish the visa regime for Iran and tomorrow there
    will be a war for its nuclear program in this country, a great number
    of Iranian citizens will flow to Azerbaijan which will create obvious
    problems for us. Moreover, Iran is holding work on export of Islamic
    revolution in Azerbaijan. The example is the events in Nardaran. Iran
    is also preparing a `surprise' for Azerbaijan, preparing Iranian
    passports for the population of Nakhchivan. Such Iranization of the
    population of Azerbaijan is inadmissible as a step rudely violating
    international norms and which can be assessed as the settlement of
    Armenians on the border lands known as South Azerbaijan. It means that
    while abolishing the visa regime, Iran will create conditions to
    promote its goals. Therefore, I consider that Iran's unilateral
    abolition of the visa regime with Azerbaijan is not by accident. We
    should take these threats into account and avert them, otherwise the
    complications can be grave.

    The number of Iranian migrants is currently growing in Azerbaijan. Do
    they pose any threat to the Azerbaijani labor market?

    Certainly, the increase in the number of Iranian migrants and their
    intensification is a serious threat. On the whole, Iran is intruding
    upon our science, education, our everyday life holding a huge
    undermining ideological work, rejecting the Azerbaijani history and
    culture. The Iranian cultural center in Baku is releasing the books
    that hold such undermining work. We see it here and no one is averting
    this. It seems that some mosques in Baku have already turned into
    Iranian. Iran tries to raise tensions inside Azerbaijan, putting
    Shiites against Sunnites. On this background, Iran is sending many of
    its citizens here through whom it is going to conduct Islamic
    revolution here too. Iranian Azerbaijanis also share my opinion.

    Leyla Tagiyeva
    News.Az
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