Employees working in the Embassy of Azerbaijan in Iran’s capital, Tehran, along with their family members were evacuated to Baku after an attack on the embassy left one person dead and two injured. On Friday, a gunman stormed the embassy and killed its security chief and wounded two guards, spiking long-simmering tension between the two neighbouring countries.
Tehran’s police chief, General Hossein Rahimi had initially attributed “personal and family problems” as the cause behind the attacks, which was quickly repeated across the Iranian media. But within hours, Rahimi would lose his position as the police chief after footage emerged that appeared to show a security force member doing nothing to stop the attack, reported the Associated Press.
“Previously, there have been attempts to threaten our diplomatic mission in Iran, and it was constantly raised before Iran to take measures to prevent such cases, and to ensure the safety of our diplomatic missions,” the Azerbaijan Foreign Ministry said. “Unfortunately, the last bloody terror attack demonstrates the serious consequences of not showing proper sensitivity to our urgent appeals in this direction.”
While Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev called the assault a “terrorist attack”, officials in Tehran ruled out the possibility saying that the act was carried out with personal motivation, as per a report by Al-Jazeera.
Azerbaijan borders Iran’s northwest and belonged to the Persian Empire until the early 19th century. Ethnic Azeris also number over 12 million people in Iran and represent the Islamic Republic’s largest minority group — making maintaining good relations even more important for Tehran.
There have been tensions between the two countries as Azerbaijan and Armenia have fought over the Nagorno-Karabakh region. Iran also wants to maintain its 44-kilometre (27-mile) border with landlocked Armenia — something that could be threatened if Azerbaijan seizes new territory through warfare.