Azerbaijan reopens its embassy in Iran

TEHRAN

The embassy of Azerbaijan in Tehran resumed its work on Monday after more than a year of negotiations between the two countries to ease tensions, Iran's semi-official media outlets reported.

A source in the Azeri embassy in Tehran told The Associated Press that the embassy has resumed its operations in the Iranian capital, but said it won’t be officially announced until the Iranian Foreign Ministry confirms the development.

But an Azeri website news.az on Monday quoted Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry as saying that its embassy in Iran has restarted work at a new address in Tehran. The report added that the embassy reopened following negotiations between Azerbaijan and Iran.

Relations between Tehran and Baku, which have been tense for a long time, soured further after a gunman in January 2023 stormed Azerbaijan’s embassy in Iran’s capital, killing its security chief and wounding two guards.

Iran said the attack was based on a personal cause and said the gunman’s wife had disappeared after a visit to the embassy, but Azeri President Ilham Aliyev called the assault a “terrorist attack.” 

Iran-Azerbaijan’s relations improved during the late Ebrahim Raisi, the former Iranian president’s era. In May, Iran and Azerbaijan inaugurated a dam of Qiz Qalasi, or Castel of Girl in Azeri, on a joint border river in northwest Iran. Aliyev attended the inauguration.

During the ceremony, Raisi said that the relationship between Tehran and Baku is beyond neighboring and is “unbreakable.”