Baku slams Tehran over Peres visit

BAKU, Azerbaijan, June 4 (UPI) -- Authorities in Azerbaijan lashed out at Tehran over its criticism of a planned visit to Baku by Israeli President Shimon Peres, officials said.

Iranian officials condemned the Peres visit to Baku, scheduled for June 28, saying it was detrimental to the Muslim regional community.

Ali Hasanov, a public affairs official for Azeri President Ilham Aliyev, said that while Tehran and Baku enjoy warm relations, Iran has no right to interfere, the Azeri Press Agency reports.

"Iran has no right to remark upon the Azerbaijan's foreign policy or its external relations," he said.

Both countries enjoy warm relations, particularly in the energy sector. Iran recently came forward with a proposal to purchase the entire gas volume from the offshore Shah Deniz gas field with the hope of exporting that gas through Turkish transit arteries.

Hasanov, however, said the statements from Tehran on the Peres visit were not helpful.

"This is a neighborhood," he said. "We don't accept the framework that 'if we have no good relations with some country, you shouldn't have relations with it either.'"

Meanwhile, the APA reports Armenia forces fired on Azeri military positions in the district of Gazakh in separate incidents Wednesday and again on Thursday.

Two enclaves in Gazakh came under Armenian control during conflicts over Nagorno-Karabakh. War broke out between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the enclaves in the early 1990s, and the regional fallout from that row remains tense despite a 1994 cease-fire.