Iran, Azerbaijan urge enhanced defense, security ties

Defense ministers of Iran and Azerbaijan have stressed the importance of strengthening defense and security cooperation amid ongoing developments in the region.

In a meeting in the Azeri capital city of Baku on Monday, Iran’s Defense Minister Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan and his Azeri counterpart, Lieutenant General Zakir Hasanov, exchanged views on the latest bilateral, regional and international developments.

“The two countries’ common stance and collaboration on security issues and events in the region and turning them into opportunities are a manifestation of common understanding between Iran and Azerbaijan,” Dehqan said.

The Iranian minister added that Tehran and Baku must improve defense and military cooperation to form “strong and influential” regional alliance in the light of deterioration of regional and international security situation as well as the spread of terrorism.

“The expansion of [bilateral] cooperation plays a very important and constructive role in establishing regional peace, stability and security,” Dehqan added.

He reaffirmed Iran’s stance on supporting Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity and the settlement of the Karabakh dispute through peaceful approaches, saying, “Given the region's sensitive conditions, we oppose any measure that will intensify the Karabakh crisis.”

He said extra-regional countries have no political will to help settle the Karabakh dispute.

Both Azerbaijan and Armenia claim the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, which is largely populated by Armenians but located in Azerbaijan.

Ethnic Armenian forces took control of the enclave, which accounts for 16 percent of Azerbaijan, in the early 1990s during a six-year war with the country that took place from February 1988 to May 1994.

The conflict left an estimated 30,000 people dead and one million displaced before the two sides agreed to a ceasefire in 1994. However, a peace accord has never been signed and the dispute still remains unsettled.

Iran has on several occasions offered to intervene in the dispute.

The Iranian defense minister further urged Caspian Sea littoral states to improve defense and security cooperation to fight terrorism, extremism and drug trafficking.

Hasanov, for his part, said the Iranian and Azeri officials are determined to bolster cooperation.

He also called for the establishment of joint commission for defense-military cooperation by Iran and Azerbaijan.

Tehran and Baku enjoy deep-rooted ties and longstanding friendship. Azeri President Ilham Aliyev paid a day-long visit to Tehran in April last year and held talks with senior Iranian authorities. During the visit, the two countries signed three memoranda of understanding.

 SF/KA/SS

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