Why Erdogan's Poem in Baku Angered Iran in December 2020

Originally published 2020-12-13.

Photo: Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan arrives at a military parade to mark the victory on Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, in Baku, Azerbaijan. © Murat Cetinmuhurdar/Presidential Press Office/Handout via REUTERS

On 10 December 2020, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan recited a few lines of verse at a military parade in Baku, and within a day Iran had summoned Turkey's ambassador. Tehran read the poem as questioning its territorial integrity, because the lines lament the division of Azerbaijani-speaking lands along the Aras River, the border between Iran and the Republic of Azerbaijan. Turkey replied that the poem had been taken out of context and summoned Iran's ambassador in turn.

The row lasted only a few days, but it opened a window onto old borders, pan-Turkic symbolism and the sensitivities of Iran's large Azerbaijani population.

The parade in Baku

Erdogan was in Baku as guest of honour at a parade celebrating Azerbaijan's gains in the war over Artsakh, known internationally as Nagorno-Karabakh. The 44-day war began in late September 2020 and killed more than 5,600 people, most of them soldiers. It ended with a ceasefire brokered by Russia, which deployed peacekeepers, while Turkey had backed Azerbaijan throughout the fighting.

Speaking from the podium alongside Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, Erdogan included a few lines of a well-known poem in his speech. For most of the audience it was an emotional flourish. In Tehran it was heard very differently.

The poem and the river at its heart

The verses come from Gülüstan, a poem associated with the Soviet-era Azerbaijani poet Bakhtiyar Vahabzadeh. As reported by Al Jazeera and other outlets, one of the lines Erdogan recited runs: "They separated the Aras River and filled it with rocks and rods." Other lines speak of being separated by force, and he also named the Arg of Tabriz, a medieval citadel, and Mount Sabalan, both of which are in north-western Iran.

The title points to history. In the early 19th century, Qajar Iran lost two wars to the Russian Empire. The Treaty of Gulistan (1813) and the Treaty of Turkmenchay (1828) transferred large parts of the South Caucasus to Russia, and Turkmenchay fixed the Aras River as the new frontier. The lands north of the river later became part of the Soviet Union and, after 1991, the independent Republic of Azerbaijan. The lands to the south, including Tabriz, stayed in Iran.

That is why the word "Azerbaijan" can mean two things: an independent country, and a wider historical region whose southern half, home to millions of Azerbaijani-speaking Iranians, lies within Iran. Iran's ISNA news agency described the poem as a separatist symbol of pan-Turkism, the idea of political and cultural unity among Turkic peoples.

How Iran responded

The reaction came quickly on 11 December. Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif wrote on Twitter, first in Farsi and then in English, that Erdogan had not been told what the verses really referred to: the forced separation of areas north of the Aras from Iran. He ended with a line in capitals: "NO ONE can talk about OUR beloved Azerbaijan."

به اردوغان نگفته بودند شعری که به غلط در باکو خواند مربوط به جدایی قهری مناطق شمالی ارس از سرزمین مادریشان ایران است!
آیا او نفهمید که علیه حاکمیت جمهوری آذربایجان سخن گفته است؟
هیچکس نمی‌تواند در باره آذربایجان عزیز ما صحبت کند.

— Javad Zarif (@JZarif) December 11, 2020

Iran's Foreign Ministry summoned the Turkish ambassador, called the remarks interventionist and unacceptable, and told him that the age of territorial claims and expansionist empires was over. According to Al Jazeera, Tehran was worried that such language could encourage separatist feeling among its Azeri minority.

Others joined in. A large majority of Iran's parliament, 225 of 290 members, signed a statement calling the recital unacceptable. Former minister Abbas Akhoundi wrote that Azerbaijan had always been "one of the founders and main pillars of Iranian civilization." Small protests were reported outside the Turkish consulate in Tabriz.

Turkey's answer and how the row cooled

Ankara rejected the criticism. Erdogan's communications director, Fahrettin Altun, said the poem had been taken out of context and was not about Iran. Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu called Iran's statements baseless, insisted that Erdogan respected Iran's sovereignty and territorial integrity, and Turkey summoned Iran's ambassador to complain about the tone used against its president.

Within days both sides stepped back. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said that, given the explanations offered by Turkish officials, the two countries could move past the issue, while stressing how sensitive Iranians are about it. Iran and Turkey depend on each other for trade, energy and border security, and neither wanted a lasting rupture over a few lines of verse.

Why a poem could cause a diplomatic crisis

The incident only makes sense against a wider background of regional competition.

• Identity inside Iran. Azerbaijanis are Iran's largest ethnic minority and are deeply woven into Iranian history and political life. Tehran is alert to any foreign message that could be read as encouraging separatism.
• Turkey's growing reach. By 2020 Turkey had become militarily active in Syria and Libya and had openly supported Azerbaijan's offensive in Artsakh. In the eastern Mediterranean, its gas exploration in waters claimed by Greece and Cyprus had drawn strong criticism from the European Union.
• A changing Caucasus. The war shifted the balance between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and Iran, which borders both, worried about losing influence on its northern frontier.

Seen this way, Iran's sharp language was less about poetry than about drawing a line, in public, against any suggestion that its borders were open to discussion.

What it tells us about the region

The episode is a reminder that symbols carry weight in this part of the world. A verse that celebrates kinship to one audience can sound like a territorial claim to another. It also shows how historical treaties signed two centuries ago still shape political feeling today.

Iran and Turkey have managed a long rivalry without open conflict, and this row ended in the same way, with careful statements and a return to business. But the speed and force of Tehran's reaction showed how fragile that balance can be whenever questions of land and identity are raised.

Sources: Al Jazeera, 11 December 2020; RT, 11 December 2020; Javad Zarif on Twitter; Wikipedia: Erdoğan Iran poem controversy; Wikipedia: Treaty of Turkmenchay. Photo: Murat Cetinmuhurdar/Presidential Press Office via Reuters.