UPDATE - Azerbaijan to protect all Azerbaijanis, including those in Iran: President

UPDATES WITH MORE REMARKS BY AZERBAIJANI PRESIDENT

By Tolga Ozgenc and Ceyhun Alizade

BAKU, Azerbaijan (AA) - The Azerbaijani president on Friday said his country will do its best to protect all Azerbaijanis across the world, including those living in Iran.

Speaking at an international conference at ADA University in the capital Baku, Aliyev said his country attaches great importance to establishing good relations with the countries of the region.

Referring to the relations with Iran, Aliyev said: "I have worked with three presidents of Iran (Mohammad) Khatami, (Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad, and (Hassan) Rouhani.

"For all these years, a situation similar to today's never occurred. A hateful and threatening statement was never made against Azerbaijan. Iran conducted two military exercises on our border in a few months.”

Emphasizing that they always respond to all kinds of statements and actions against Azerbaijan, he noted: "Therefore, we had to conduct military exercises on the Iranian border to show that we are not afraid of them. We will do our best to protect the secular lifestyle of Azerbaijan and Azerbaijanis around the world, including Azerbaijanis in Iran. They are part of our people."

The president pointed out that there are some schools in Azerbaijan that teach in Russian or Georgian and also some schools in Georgia that teach in the Azerbaijani language.

“There are schools that teach in Armenian in Iran, but there are no schools that teach in Azerbaijani language. How can this be? If someone says that this is interference in internal affairs, we absolutely reject it. Azerbaijan's foreign policy is as plain as day, we did not and do not interfere in the internal affairs of any state."

The leader also stressed that they raised the issue because "otherwise Iranian Azerbaijanis who speak their mother tongue will lose the literary element of the language and the Azerbaijani language will remain only at the household level."