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Become a memberOn 1 April, the Iranian Presidential Adviser on Political Affairs, Mehdi Sanayei, traveled to Baku, where he met with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, presidential aide Hikmat Hajiyev, and Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov. During his visit, Azerbaijani pro-government media announced that Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian would visit Azerbaijan later that same month, the first such visit following his election in 2024.
According to pro-government media outlet Report.az, during his meeting with Aliyev, Sanayei stressed that Iran attaches great importance to the development of relations with neighboring states, especially with Azerbaijan.
The two discussed issues of cooperation between Azerbaijan and Iran in the transport sector, especially the development of the North–South transport corridor, and also touched upon the activities of the intergovernmental commission.
An exchange of views also took place on the progress of the construction of the bridge across the Araz River in the direction of Agband. This bridge was previously agreed upon during the administration of the late former Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi.
Following this, Sanayei met with Hajiyev, who later posted on social media that they discussed ‘bilateral political relations between Azerbaijan and Iran’, including ‘continuing the talks held during my visit to Iran in February 2025’.
Finally, Sanayei met with Bayramov, where the two discussed ‘various aspects of the current agenda of bilateral and multilateral cooperation between countries, as well as regional and international security issues’.
Sanayei’s visit, and the news of Pezeshkian’s impending visit, might indicate a lessening of tensions between Azerbaijan and Iran.
Tensions originally deepened between Azerbaijan and Iran following the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War in 2020 as the authorities in Azerbaijan began to periodically crack down on and arrest members of its Shia community on suspicion of spying for Iran.
Azerbaijan has also previously demanded that Iran ‘end disrespect for the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan’, expressing consternation at the supposed travel of Iranian cargo lorries to Armenian-inhabited parts of Nagorno-Karabakh in 2021.
In January 2023, an armed man stormed into Azerbaijan’s Embassy in Tehran, killing its head of security and injuring two other guards, leading Azerbaijani officials to blame Iran for the attack.
Aytan Farhadova
The journalists met with Azerbaijani MP Fazil Mustafa, who is best known for surviving a possibly Iranian-linked assassination attempt in 2023.
At the same time, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev reiterated Azerbaijan’s preconditions for the signing of the peace deal.
President Frank-Walter Steinmeier’s visit to Baku is the first time a German president has been to the country.
The spat appears to have originated from a now deleted Instagram post from the German president containing the Nagorno-Karabakh flag.
