‘Azeri govt. plaything for US, Israel’

An Iranian lawmaker says the government of Azerbaijan has turned into a plaything in the hands of the United States and Israel by arresting Islamic activists and restricting the activities of Iranian institutions in the Asian country.

Referring to the recent arrest of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) employees in Baku, the Iranian lawmaker, Zohreh Elahian, noted on Thursday that the unconventional measures taken by Azerbaijan against Iran will have adverse effects on bilateral relations.

Azerbaijan should not play into the hands of countries like the United States and Zionist Occupation Israel, she said.

“It is not to the benefit of Azerbaijan to pursue the objectives of the West because the public opinion inside Azerbaijan will not accept such a thing,” she said.

The lawmaker, who is a member of the Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, urged the Iranian Foreign Ministry to keep investigating the incident in Baku.

On February 18, Azerbaijan’s police and plainclothes forces arrested two IRIB employees in the capital city of Baku. The detainees, an IRIB correspondent and a local driver, were transferred to the Central Police Department on charges of “carrying illicit drugs.”

Azerbaijan also refused entry to a senior IRIB official upon arrival at Heydar Aliyev International Airport in December 2011. Director of the IRIB office in Baku Ahmad Kazemi was stopped by customs officials and forced to take the return flight to Tehran on the same day.

Baku has recently engaged in a new wave of arresting Islamic activists and anti-government protestors in the Caspian Sea state.

The Republic of Azerbaijan has been involved in anti-Iran acts, helping Mossad agents in terrorist attacks against Iranians by providing them with technical and logistical support.

Last year, Majid Jamali Fashi, a Mossad agent who assassinated Iranian nuclear scientist Massoud Ali-Mohammadi, confessed to having received forged documents in Azerbaijan’s Heydar Aliyev Airport to travel to Tel Aviv.

Professor Ali-Mohammadi, a lecturer at Tehran University, was killed when an explosive-laden motorbike was detonated with a remote-controlled device near his home in northern Tehran in January 2010.