BAKU (Reuters) – Azerbaijan will evacuate embassy staff and members of the family from Iran on Sunday, the foreign ministry said, two days after a gunman shot dead a security guard and wounded two other people in an attack Baku branded an “act of terrorism”.
Police in Tehran have said that they had arrested a suspect and Iranian authorities condemned Friday’s incident, but said the gunman appeared to have had a private, not a political, motive.
The incident got here amid increased tensions between the neighbouring countries over Iran’s treatment of its large ethnic Azeri minority and over Azerbaijan’s decision this month to appoint its first ever ambassador to Israel.
After the attack, the Azeri foreign ministry said it summoned Iran’s ambassador in Baku to demand justice and would evacuate embassy staff from Tehran. It gave no further details, including whether the embassy would proceed to operate.
Earlier, the ministry said the shooting was the results of Tehran failing to heed its calls for higher security.
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CCTV footage obtained by Reuters showed the attacker forcing his way into the embassy constructing and shooting at two men before a 3rd embassy worker grapples him away.
A gray-haired man identified because the attacker was later shown on Iranian state TV saying he had acted to secure the discharge of his Azeri wife who he believed was being held on the embassy.
A young woman identified because the man’s daughter said her mother was in Azerbaijan.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi called for “a comprehensive investigation” of the incident and sent his condolences to Azerbaijan and the dead man’s family, state media said.
(Reporting by Nailia Bagirova; writing by Vladimir Soldatkin; editing by Mark Heinrich)
Copyright 2023 Thomson Reuters.
