Azerbaijan claims that there have never been and will never be forces of third countries on its state border

The State Border Service (SBS) of Azerbaijan has responded to statements of Commander of Iranian Border Guards, Major General Ali Goudarzi, press service of the SBS told APA.

The respective SBS statement reads: “The Commander of Border Guards of Islamic Republic of Iran Major General Ali Goudarzi has recently made statements in his interview published in mass media outlets of Iran which do not reflect the truth.

country on the state border of the Republic of Azerbaijan, there are not now and will not be from now on too.

Claims on the activity of takfiris [i.e., Muslims who accuse other Muslims of apostasy] coming from foreign countries, as well as the use of Azerbaijani territory by third countries for intelligence purposes against Iran, are false and do not reflect reality.

Forces of any foreign state, specialists do not exist in the state borders, in border guards of the Republic of Azerbaijan, State Border Service which has the most contemporary opportunities for reliable protection and security of the state borders of the Republic of Azerbaijan, does not need the support of foreign forces.

Applying border and customs control in the part of the Gorus-Gafan [i.e., Armenia’s Goris-Kapan] road passing through the territory of the Republic of Azerbaijan on the state border with Armenia is a sovereign right of the Republic of Azerbaijan.

Although working meetings at various levels have been held and information exchange has been conducted regularly between Azerbaijani and Iranian border guards, generally no information about what was said in the interview has been given and no fact has been presented to the Azerbaijani side.

Currently, operation conditions in the state border with the Islamic Republic of Iran are stable and are under the control of the Azerbaijan border protection bodies. Any provocations directed at the state interests of the Republic of Azerbaijani in the state border will be resolutely prevented also from now.

Taking into consideration what has been mentioned, we recommend to the officials of the Islamic Republic of Iran to be more responsible, and avoid to spread false and defamatory information.”

To note, the commander of Iranian Border Guards, Major General Ali Goudarzi, had made a statement about Israel’s military presence on the Azerbaijan-Iran border.