One killed in attack on Azerbaijan’s embassy in Iran

Tehran, Iran (AFP):

The head of security at Azerbaijan’s embassy in Tehran was killed Friday and two guards injured in an attack by a man who said it was for personal reasons, the city’s police chief said.

“A man armed with a Kalashnikov killed the head of the diplomatic mission’s guard,” an Azeri foreign ministry statement said, adding that the injured guards were in a “satisfactory” condition and an investigation had been launched.

The attacker has been arrested and is an Iranian man married to an Azerbaijani woman, Tehran’s police chief General Hossein Rahimi said.

“He claims his wife has been held at the embassy for nine months,” Rahimi said.

Earlier Rahimi had told the Tasnim news agency that the assailant had “entered the embassy with his two small children” before carrying out the attack for “personal and… family” reasons.

A video posted on social media shows the body of a man lying in a pool of blood inside the embassy, surrounded by medical and security personnel.

A paramedic is heard saying in Azeri that the person “has no vital signs”.

Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman, Nasser Kanani, said Tehran strongly condemned “the armed attack… which unfortunately resulted in the death of one person”.

“According to the preliminary investigation, these are personal motives,” he added.

Iran is home to millions of Turkic-speaking, ethnic Azerbaijanis and it has long accused Baku of fomenting separatist sentiments inside its territory.

Relations between the two countries have traditionally been sour, with the former Soviet republic a close ally of Iran’s historical rival Turkey.

Tehran also fears that Azerbaijani territory could be used for a possible offensive against Iran by Israel, a major supplier of arms to Baku.