Azerbaijan declares 14 Iranian citizens “persona non grata” and bans their entry
The list includes members of Iran's parliament, clerics, political experts and media figures. The decision was based on their calls against Azerbaijan and promotion of hostility.
Azerbaijan has declared 14 Iranian citizens “persona non grata” and banned them from entering its territory. The information was released on November 3.
The decision was based on these individuals making calls against Azerbaijan and promoting hostility in the media and on social networks. The list includes current and former members of Iran's parliament, clerics, political experts and media figures.
It was stated that unfounded accusations, insulting remarks and unlawful calls by Iranian citizens and media outlets against Azerbaijan's state, people and leadership have recently increased. According to the information, some clerics, members of parliament, experts and media figures targeted Azerbaijan's sovereignty, security, state–religion relations and system of governance, promoted religious radicalism, tried to incite religious hatred and called for the forcible change of government.
The list includes members of Iran's Islamic Consultative Assembly Kamran Ghazanfari, Abolfazl Zohrevand, Abbas Moghtadaei Khorasgani and Alireza Salimi, former MP and political commentator Alireza Beygi, and Hossein Shariatmadari, editor-in-chief of the Kayhan newspaper.
Also on the list are Ayatollah Mohsen Araki, a member of the Assembly of Experts, which elects the Supreme Leader, and of the Expediency Discernment Council; Ayatollah Mohammad Javad Fazel Lankarani, a member of the Society of Teachers of the Qom Seminary; Abdolhossein Khosrowpanah, secretary of the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution; and Gholamreza Kavashi, head of public relations at the office of the Tabriz Friday prayer imam.
The others are Ehsan Movahedian, a political analyst and lecturer at Allameh Tabataba'i University in Tehran; Ahmad Farshbafian, former head of the Center for Caucasus and Anatolia Studies at the University of Tabriz; professor and political expert Dariush Safarnejad; and actor and television presenter Ahmadreza Mousavi.
In April 2023, Azerbaijan also declared four employees of the Iranian embassy in Baku “persona non grata” and expelled them. In January of that year, Azerbaijan's embassy in Tehran was the target of an armed attack in which the head of the embassy's security service was killed.
