Azerbaijan urges Iran to comply with int'l obligations, punish perpetrators behind attack on its Tehran embassy

By Ceyhun Alizade

ANKARA (AA) - Azerbaijan on Wednesday censured Iran for opposing "international obligations" regarding the condemnation and probe of the Jan. 27 attack on its embassy in Tehran.

The Foreign Ministry in a statement said Baku has called for international condemnation and punishment of those behind the "terror attack," as well as for the fulfillment of commitments under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, but Tehran "has tried to prevent the terror attack from being widely exposed at the international level."

"Iran objected to the draft communiqués and statements submitted by Azerbaijan to the Coordinating Bureau of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and to the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) immediately after the attack," the statement read.

The ministry said Iran appealed to numerous countries for support in NAM, a forum of 120 countries, but it was only aided by Syria and India.

It said the three countries say that terror attacks in individual countries are not condemned in the NAM, and bilateral issues are not brought to international platforms.

"However, the Non-Aligned Movement has, in many cases, adopted a number of documents condemning the terror attacks that have occurred in its member states and emphasizing the protection of diplomatic missions," Azerbaijan's diplomatic service argued.

"We condemn this provocative step of Iran and state that it must comply with its international obligations," it said, adding: "Azerbaijan will use all relevant international platforms to widely condemn the terror act against its Embassy and punish the perpetrators of the said act."

A gunman stormed the Azerbaijani mission in the Iranian capital last Friday, killing the security in charge and wounding two others.

Azerbaijan evacuated its staff and their family members from the mission after the attack, and has also advised its citizens against traveling to Iran.