Azerbaijan declares 14 Iranian citizens who made calls against it 'persona non grata'

Fourteen Iranian citizens who made calls against Azerbaijan and promoted hostility in the media and on social networks have been declared 'persona non grata' on the territory of the Republic of Azerbaijan and banned from entering the country. The decision was announced on 3 November.

The announcement says that recently an increase has been observed in groundless harsh accusations, insulting statements and illegal calls by citizens and media of the Islamic Republic of Iran against the Azerbaijani state, its people and leadership.

According to the announcement, clerics of various ranks, members of parliament, experts and media representatives have targeted Azerbaijan's sovereignty, security, state-religion relations and system of governance, promoted religious radicalism, attempted to incite religious hatred and hostility, and made calls for the violent overthrow of the government.

Those declared 'persona non grata' are: Ehsan Movahedian (political analyst, lecturer at Allameh Tabataba'i University in Tehran), Ahmad Farshbafian (former head of the Centre for Caucasus and Anatolia Studies at the University of Tabriz), members of Iran's Islamic Consultative Assembly Kamran Ghazanfari, Abolfazl Zohrevand, Abbas Moqtadaei Khorasgani and Alireza Salimi, former MP Alireza Beigi, Kayhan newspaper editor-in-chief Hossein Shariatmadari, Ayatollah Mohsen Araki, member of the Assembly of Experts and the Expediency Council, Ayatollah Mohammad Javad Fazel Lankarani, member of the Society of Seminary Teachers of Qom, Abdolhossein Khosropanah, secretary of Iran's Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution, Hojatoleslam Gholamreza Kavashi, head of public relations at the office of Tabriz's Friday prayer leader, professor Dariush Safarnejad, and actor and TV presenter Ahmadreza Mousavi.

The list includes four sitting and one former member of Iran's Islamic Consultative Assembly, two ayatollahs, a member of the Assembly of Experts that elects the Supreme Leader, and an official linked to the office of the Iranian Supreme Leader's representative in East Azerbaijan province.

Relations between Azerbaijan and Iran have repeatedly become strained in recent years. On 27 January 2023, Azerbaijan's embassy in Tehran came under armed attack in which the head of the embassy's security service was killed, and Baku suspended the embassy's work and evacuated its staff.

In April of that year, Azerbaijan's Foreign Ministry declared four employees of the Iranian embassy in Baku 'persona non grata' and demanded that they leave the country.