Everyone in Iran has different views on the military events that took place in Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) and Azerbaijan and the defeat of Artsakh that followed. This is what Director of the Institute of Oriental Studies at the Russian-Armenian University, Professor Garnik Asatryan told Armenian News-NEWS.am.

“On the one hand, certain radical circles have a positive attitude because, in their opinion, “the territories of Islam previously occupied by Armenia” have been expanded. As is known, in Islam, there are two concepts, including territory of Islam and territory of war. According to this approach, the territory of war has turned into a territory of Islam. For the mentioned circles, the state (Azerbaijan), the majority of the population of which is Shiite, has won. On the other hand, Iran now faces big challenges in terms of security due to the growing role of jihadist elements, Israel (to a certain extent) and, of course, Turkey in the north. Iran is really concerned about this. It was not by chance that the Iranian public gave an extremely negative response to the poem that Erdogan recited during the military parade in Baku, hinting that the territories in the south of Araks are the lands of Azerbaijan. This was followed by the relevant statements by Iran’s foreign minister and parliamentary speaker. In other words, the expansion of the territory of Islam in the north of Iran has created problems with security of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” he stated.

According to the analyst, the nationalist circles and the Iranian opposition blame the authorities for the fact that they didn’t help Armenia, even though Tehran, according to them, should have put in all of its efforts to help the Armenian side and contribute to the latter’s victory over Azerbaijan.