Iran executes Azerbaijani Embassy attacker

Iran has executed a man who stormed and attacked the Azerbaijani Embassy in Tehran in January 2023, killing its head of security and injuring two others.

The man, whose identity was not confirmed by Iran but was claimed by Azerbaijani pro-government to be Yasin Huseynzadeh, was executed on Wednesday morning.

According to Mizan, a news agency belonging to Iran’s judiciary, the man claimed to have attacked the embassy because he thought his wife visited the embassy and ‘never returned home’.

‘I thought my wife was at the Azerbaijan Embassy in Tehran and was unwilling to meet me. I decided to go to the embassy with a Kalashnikov rifle I had previously acquired’, he reportedly said.

The attack on Azerbaijan’s Embassy in Tehran marked a significant turn for the worst in Azerbaijani–Iranian relations, which have been uneasy for years — compounded by the presence of a  significant minority of ethnic Azerbaijanis in Iran, as well as larger geopolitical factors such as Azerbaijan’s close ties with Israel and Iran’s warm relations with Armenia.

Following the incident in January 2023, Baku was quick to blame Tehran for failing to protect the embassy, with Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry spokesperson Aykhan Hajizadeh saying that Baku did not believe the attack was carried out ‘on personal grounds’.

‘All responsibility for the attack falls on the Iranian side’, Hajizadeh said at the time.

One dead in attack on Azerbaijani Embassy in Iran

A gunman has killed the head of security and injured two other guards in an attack on the Azerbaijani Embassy in Iran. Azerbaijani officials have blamed Iran for the attack, an allegation that comes amidst rising tensions between Tehran and Baku. The attack took place at around 08:00 local time on Friday morning. Surveillance footage released by pro-government media in Azerbaijan appears to show the assailant, who they identified as Iranian citizen Yasin Huseynzadeh, entering the building w

OC MediaIsmi Aghayev