Iran on Friday summoned Turkey’s ambassador to Tehran, Derya Örs, over President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s poem read in Baku a day before.
According to the Tehran-based Mehr News Agency, the Iranian foreign ministry’s spokesperson Saeed Khatibzadeh said Örs had been summoned following the "meddlesome and unacceptable" remarks of Erdoğan.
Erdoğan on Thursday attended the victory parade in the capital Baku as the guest of honor at the Azadliq Square to celebrate Azerbaijan's recent military success in liberating its region of Nagorno-Karabakh from nearly 30 years of Armenian occupation. The president there recited a poem about the Aras River on the Iranian-Azerbaijani border.
“They separated the Aras River and filled it with sand. I will not be separated from you. They have separated us forcibly,” reads part of the poem.
Earlier Friday, Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif claimed on Twitter that the poem “refers to the forcible separation of areas north of Aras from Iranian motherland.”
Tehran voiced a "strong protest" against the remarks, urging the Turkish government to offer explanations as soon as possible, according to the foreign ministry spokesperson.
