AZERI LEADER POSTPONE HIS OFFICIAL VISIT TO TEHRAN
BAKU 17 Sept (IPS) Azerbaijan's President Heydar Aliyev has postponed a visit to Iran, the presidential press service said early Sunday, prompting speculation that the move was linked to last week's terror attacks in the United States.
The Russian independent news agency "Interfax" that reported the information on Sunday said no reason was given for the postponement, but an Azeri source said the postponement was "imposed" by the situation following the terrorist attack of 11 September on the USA.
Aliyev had been due to fly to the Iranian capital Tehran today Monday for talks centered on the legal status of the Caspian Sea, resolve differences between the two countries over how to divide up the oil-rich Sea between the five littoral states as well as developing ties between the two neighbours.
"The visit, scheduled for 17 to 19 September, has been temporarily postponed", the president's press service said without elaborating, adding only that a new date would be set through diplomatic channels.
Iran and Azerbaijan reached the brink of an open war after Iran sent a gunboat and a warplane to ward off oil research vessels belonging to the British Petroleum operating on behalf of the Azerbaijan’s State Oil Company in a region of the Caspian claimed by both Tehran and Baku.
"President Aliyev has backed US President George W. Bush's call for counter-strikes against terrorists", the source explained, adding that at the same time, he has warned his American counterpart against taking any decisions "in haste", joining other European and Muslim leaders.
Counter-measures should only be taken "after the organisers have been tracked down," Interfax quoted Aliyev as telling a delegation of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) that visited Baku Saturday.
However he stressed that hasty decisions "sometimes result in mistakes" and has warned that no measures should be taken against a nation or religion as a whole on the basis of the nationality or religion of the terrorists found to be responsible for the deadly attacks on the World Trade Centre twin towers in New York and the Pentagon in Washington D.C.
The official announcement follows press reports in Baku earlier this week that Aliyev was under pressure from US diplomats to boycott Iran in the wake of the attacks, officially attributed to Ossama Ben Laden.
Aliyev told PACE Secretary-General Lord Russell-Johnston that Azerbaijan would take "all necessary measures" in relation to the terror attacks, citing increased identity checks, Interfax reported.
There have been no firm allegations of Iranian involvement in the attacks, but Western governments have fingered the Islamic Republic of Iran as having harboured terrorists in the past, the agency said.
"So soon after the tragic events in New York and Washington, the Azeri president cannot visit a country which is accused by the US of supporting international terrorism", Interfax quoted the Zerkalo newspaper as having wrote on Friday, in flagrant contradiction with the expression of satisfaction by American officials about Iranian reaction to the tragic events that shocked both the United States and the world at large.
Iranian President Mohammad Khatami and conservative clerics have all condemned the terrorist attacks and expressed their sympathy with the families of the victims and the American nation.
Iranian and Bahreini soccer teams observed a minute of silence before the start of the match Friday in the memory of the thousands who died in the unprecedented crushing of three hijacked passenger planes in the TWC towers and over the American Defence Ministry as around 200 young Tehranis held a silent, candle-lit gathering in Tehran on Thursday evening, many wearing black shirts in a sign of mourning during gathering.
"No Muslim could approve of such actions where innocent, defenceless people, women and children, are killed", Ayatollah Mohammad Emami Kashani, a conservative cleric, had told the Friday priers in Tehran
Also for the first time in the past 22 years, the Friday priers all over the country were held without the now traditional chants and slogans of "death to America", prompting American officials of expressing their satisfaction with Iranian stand.
However, there was no confirmation from Tehran about the postponement of Aliyev visit. ENDS ALIYEV VISIT POSTPONED 17901