Iran’s ambassador to Armenia, Mehdi Sobhani, forcefully rejected Azerbaijan’s continued references to Armenian territory as “Western Azerbaijan,” warning that such rhetoric constitutes a veiled territorial claim and has no basis in geography or international law.
“Western Azerbaijan is the name of a province within the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Sobhani said at a press conference in Yerevan on Friday. “It cannot and must not be used to describe any other geographical area, especially in a context that implies claims to Armenia’s sovereign land.”
The ambassador’s remarks came in response to repeated statements by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, who has described parts of modern-day Armenia as “historical Azerbaijani lands” and demanded the return of Azerbaijanis allegedly displaced from the region in the late 1980s. Aliyev has made such demands a precondition for a lasting peace with Armenia—an assertion flatly rejected by Yerevan as an attempt to rewrite history and justify future aggression.
These claims found their way into a joint declaration adopted by foreign ministers of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) at a June 21 meeting in Turkey. The Armenian Foreign Ministry condemned the inclusion of pro-Azerbaijani language in the document, warning that it undermines the region’s fragile peace process.
Notably, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi was present at the OIC summit but did not publicly oppose the declaration’s wording. Ambassador Sobhani, however, reaffirmed Tehran’s position days later, stating that Iran—despite its ongoing conflict with Israel—remains firmly committed to Armenia’s territorial integrity and opposes any corridor project that would compromise it.
His statement was an implicit rebuke of Baku’s ambitions to establish a land route through southern Armenia, which many in the region view as a threat to Armenian sovereignty and a destabilizing move backed by Ankara.
Iran, which shares borders with both Armenia and Azerbaijan, has consistently warned against any redrawing of regional borders. Sobhani’s comments underscore Tehran’s balancing act in the South Caucasus—and its unwillingness to tolerate rhetoric that could lead to escalation.Ask ChatGPT
