Iran and Azerbaijan disagree on whether Friday’s attack on the Azeri embassy in Tehran constituted a ‘terrorist act’.
Tehran, Iran – Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi has told his Azerbaijani counterpart that bilateral relations should not be affected after an attack on Baku’s embassy in Tehran that left one person dead.
The attack took place on Friday when a man rushed the embassy with an assault rifle and opened fire, killing the head of the security staff and injuring two other guards.
Raisi and President Ilham Aliyev had a phone call on Saturday to discuss the issue, during which the Iranian president expressed his condolences and said an investigation is under way.
“The governments of Iran and Azerbaijan will not allow bilateral relations to be affected by the suggestions of those who wish ill on the two nations,” Raisi was quoted as saying on his official website.
The Iranian president’s website also quoted Aliyev as saying “this was an unexpected crime, but cooperation between the two countries on this must be in a way that no one will find an opportunity to disrupt friendly bilateral relations using such incidents as an excuse”.
But the readout of the call by the Azerbaijani presidency made no mention of this, further stressing a point concerning the attack that has divided Tehran and Baku.
Aliyev strongly condemned the “terrorist act” and stressed that had it not been for a second guard who tackled the gunman, “he would have targeted other employees of the embassy and their family members living in the apartment section of the embassy compound”.
CCTV footage released by Iran showed the attacker hurriedly arriving at the scene with his car and crashing into another vehicle parked in front of the embassy. After exiting the car with the rifle in hand, he passes an unarmed Iranian guard sitting in a booth and enters the embassy shooting. While shooting at two Azerbaijani guards, a third tackles him, eventually disarming the attacker.
Aliyev had immediately condemned the incident as a “terrorist act” while the Azerbaijani foreign ministry summoned Iran’s envoy to Baku and said it will evacuate its diplomatic staff.
Top officials in Tehran, meanwhile, repeatedly said the attack did not constitute a “terrorist” act as it was carried out with personal motivations.
باحضور در بیمارستان از روند درمانی کارکنان سفارت جمهوری #آذربایجان مطلع شدم. همچنین در تماس تلفنی با همکارم @Bayramov_Jeyhun پیام تسلیت دکتر رئیسی را منتقل کردم. ج.ا.ایران آماده همکاری برای روشن شدن ابعاد حادثه است.
به دولت و ملت برادر و همسایه،این حادثه تلخ را تسلیت می گویم. pic.twitter.com/iquSTpUn4N
— H.Amirabdollahian امیرعبداللهیان (@Amirabdolahian) January 27, 2023
[Translation: I was at the hospital and learned about the treatment process of the Azerbaijan Republic embassy staff. Also, in a phone call with my colleague (Azerbaijani foreign minister Jeyhun Baryamov), I conveyed Dr Raisi’s message of condolences. The Islamic Republic of Iran is ready to cooperate to clarify the dimensions of the incident. I offer my condolences to the government and nation of our brother and neighbour for this tragic incident.]
The attacker, a man identified as Yasin Hosseinzadeh, was interviewed by Iran’s state television and said he stormed the embassy to “rescue” his wife, whom he said had disappeared after entering the embassy close to a year earlier.
Iranian state television also interviewed the man’s two young children, whom he had reportedly brought to the embassy and were in the car at the time of the attack, with the daughter saying her mother had travelled back to Baku – where she was from – but her father believed she was at the embassy.
Many countries, including Russia, Turkey and the United States condemned the attack and called for a transparent investigation.
The attack comes amid months of tensions between neighbours Iran and Azerbaijan, with the latter being a close ally of Turkey, Iran’s historical rival.
Iran, home to millions of ethnic Azeris, has long accused Baku of fomenting separatist sentiments in the country and has also taken issue with some of its plan following the Nagorno-Karabakh war that could affect its borders with Armenia.
Tehran has also repeatedly warned Baku against its expanding military cooperation with Israel, saying Israel could potentially use Azerbaijani territory as a bridgehead against Iran.
OTTAWA – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the NDP is caving to political pressure from Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre when it comes to their stance on the consumer carbon price.
Trudeau says he believes Jagmeet Singh and the NDP care about the environment, but it’s “increasingly obvious” that they have “no idea” what to do about climate change.
On Thursday, Singh said the NDP is working on a plan that wouldn’t put the burden of fighting climate change on the backs of workers, but wouldn’t say if that plan would include a consumer carbon price.
Singh’s noncommittal position comes as the NDP tries to frame itself as a credible alternative to the Conservatives in the next federal election.
Poilievre responded to that by releasing a video, pointing out that the NDP has voted time and again in favour of the Liberals’ carbon price.
British Columbia Premier David Eby also changed his tune on Thursday, promising that a re-elected NDP government would scrap the long-standing carbon tax and shift the burden to “big polluters,” if the federal government dropped its requirements.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
Simon Jolin-Barrette, minister responsible for consumer protection, has tabled a bill to force merchants to calculate tips based on the price before tax.
That means on a restaurant bill of $100, suggested tips would be calculated based on $100, not on $114.98 after provincial and federal sales taxes are added.
The bill would also increase the rebate offered to consumers when the price of an item at the cash register is higher than the shelf price, to $15 from $10.
And it would force grocery stores offering a discounted price for several items to clearly list the unit price as well.
Businesses would also have to indicate whether taxes will be added to the price of food products.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
Quebec legislature member Youri Chassin has announced he’s leaving the Coalition Avenir Québec government to sit as an Independent.
He announced the decision shortly after writing an open letter criticizing Premier François Legault’s government for abandoning its principles of smaller government.
In the letter published in Le Journal de Montréal and Le Journal de Québec, Chassin accused the party of falling back on what he called the old formula of throwing money at problems instead of looking to do things differently.
Chassin says public services are more fragile than ever, despite rising spending that pushed the province to a record $11-billion deficit projected in the last budget.
He is the second CAQ member to leave the party in a little more than one week, after economy and energy minister Pierre Fitzgibbon announced Sept. 4 he would leave because he lost motivation to do his job.
Chassin says he has no intention of joining another party and will instead sit as an Independent until the end of his term.
He has represented the Saint-Jérôme riding since the CAQ rose to power in 2018, but has not served in cabinet.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
