On January 27, around 8:30 Baku time, an armed attack took place on the Embassy of Azerbaijan in Iran. The assailant broke through the guard post with a Kalashnikov automatic weapon and entered the embassy. As a result of the incident, 2 employees of the security staff of the embassy were injured, and the head of the security service, Orkhan Asgarov, was killed. The condition of two injured employees of the security service is satisfactory, Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry stated.
After the incident, the employees of the Embassy of Azerbaijan in Iran were evacuated.
Who is the attacker?
Iranian media agency “Tasnim” writes that the person who attacked the embassy, 50-year-old Yasin Huseynzade, was detained by the local police. Chief of Tehran Police, Brigadier General Sardar Hossein Rahimi, said that Huseynzade had family problems and according to the preliminary investigation, the incident was personally motivated.
Caliber.az website, which is close to the Azerbaijani government, writes that the attack on the embassy in Iran is a terrorist act, and that Iranian special services are behind it:
First, the Iranian side is trying to cover up the traces and create a distracting informational noise, supposedly speaking about the “Armenian trace”. But this is an obvious lie and an attempt to confuse the Azerbaijani public. The next version of Iranian propaganda is as follows: allegedly Iranian Yasin Huseynzade came here with his two children to “free” his wife, who was detained in the territory of the embassy for some reason. This is a white lie and an attempt to present a terrorist act planned by Iranian special services as a domestic crime.
Caliber.az
Aykhan Hajizade, head of the press service of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan, said that all necessary measures are being taken to ensure the security of Azerbaijan’s diplomatic missions abroad.
Chief of Tehran Police Brigadier General Sardar Hossein Rahimi was relieved of his post. Seyyid Abbas Mousavi, Iran’s ambassador to Azerbaijan, was summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan. At the meeting held at the Ministry, he was told that Azerbaijan condemns the armed attack and considers such attacks on the diplomatic mission unacceptable.
Who reacted and how?
Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev wrote on Twitter about the armed attack on the Embassy of Azerbaijan in Iran at around 13:00 Baku time:
I fiercely condemn the terrorist act penetrated against our embassy in Tehran today. I offer my deepest condolences to the family and loved ones of Senior Lieutenant Asgarov Orkhan Rizvan oghlu, who died while protecting the embassy and embassy employees. We demand that this terrorist act be investigated soon and the terrorists be punished. A terrorist attack against diplomatic missions is unacceptable!
Ilham Aliyev
Azerbaijan’s ambassador to Iran Ali Alizade called for the punishment of those responsible for the armed attack on the embassy of Azerbaijan in Iran.
Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, wrote on her Telegram channel:
We were shocked by the death of a security officer during another attack on the Azerbaijani embassy.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlud Çavuşoğlu tweeted:
I condemn the attack on the Azerbaijani Embassy in Tehran.
Vladanka Andreyeva, the UN Resident Coordinator in Azerbaijan, tweeted:
Attacks against civilians and civilian objects, including diplomatic missions, are strictly prohibited under international humanitarian law. I offer my condolences to the family of the deceased and wish the injured a speedy recovery.
Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Lior Haiat wrote that the attack on the embassy shocked and saddened them:
We were shocked and saddened by the killing of the security chief in the terrible attack against the embassy of Azerbaijan in Tehran. We offer our deepest condolences to the people and government of Azerbaijan, to the family of the deceased, and we wish the injured to recover as soon as possible.
Criminal proceedings have been initiated under fifteen articles of Azerbaijani Criminal Code by the State Security Service.
