President Ilham Aliyev says that illegal travel by Iranian trucks to certain parts of the Karabakh area that is under the supervision of a Russian peacekeeping force does not respect Azerbaijan's territorial integrity. The President of Azerbaijan spoke in an interview with the media organization of the Turkish agency Anadolu, on Monday.
"Then, of course, we started monitoring the situation and at the beginning of each month we collected information on how many trucks came in and how many left, what they brought and took out. We have all the information, including their license plates, and they were published in the media.
But what happened after that?
They tried to attach Armenian license plates to Iranian trucks. They committed this forgery in an attempt to deceive us."
On August 11, Iran's ambassador to Azerbaijan received a text message from the Foreign Ministry in addition to an earlier text message about Baku's dissatisfaction with the illegal movement of goods into the Karabakh area. However, the verbal messages did not help to settle the dispute. Therefore, Azerbaijan police, customs and border posts were placed in the lane used for shipping traffic.
According to media reports, the Azerbaijani police began checking the Iranian truck documents in the Azerbaijani section of the Gurus-Geffen highway starting September 12, 2021. On September 15, two truck drivers were detained by police due to illegal passage through Azerbaijan territory.
Meanwhile, Iran began large-scale military exercises along the country's border with Azerbaijan on September 19.
However, President Aliyev said the military exercises along the Iran-Azerbaijan border were "surprising".
Meanwhile, the Tehran Times called Iran's military exercises a "clear show of strength" by Tehran.
Iran later hinted / threatened that there was an Israeli military presence in Azerbaijan and that they would act against any factor that threatened their security.
The military expert of the website Natziv.net commented on the background of this news that "this Israeli presence in Azerbaijan is a well-known "secret".
The Iranians are well aware of the deep connection between Israel and the Azeris, which includes military assistance with equipment and training.
"It's funny that the Iranians are bringing tanks into an arena that is exposed and open. The Azeris will destroy them like cockroaches with guided armament."
Images: BESA