Word: azerbaijan
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...tackle Iran's domestic problems. Chief among them: the revolt by the Azerbaijanis in northwestern Iran that has exacerbated unrest among Iran's other minorities, including the Kurds in the west, the seminomadic Qashqais in the south and the Baluchis in the southeast. All of Azerbaijan now appears to be virtually under the control of forces loyal to Ayatullah Seyed Kazem Sharietmadari, Khomeini's chief rival (see following story). Late in the week, local air force and army units joined in a huge demonstration in favor of Sharietmadari in Tabriz (pop. 500,000), capital of East Azerbaijan...
...Azerbaijan may seem a remote corner of the world, but this was once the land of the all-powerful Medes, the birthplace of Zoroaster, and from its capital of Tabriz the Mongol Khans ruled an empire that stretched from Egypt to Cathay. Though a disastrous series of earthquakes leveled every trace of Tabriz's great palaces, the region's ethnic Turks remain a driving force in Iran. Not only do they represent more than a third of the population (5 million in Azerbaijan, 8 million more in the rest of the country), but they are the nation...
...civil war will take place." He gave Khomeini an uncommonly aggressive lecture about insisting that the West was responsible for the uprising. Said Sharietmadari: "Everything that happens in this country should not be blamed on 'international Zionism and imperialism.' The legitimate demands of the people of Azerbaijan should not be dismissed...
...tensions in Azerbaijan can only further stir Iran's other jostling eth nic minorities-the Kurds in adjoining Kurdistan, the Arabs near the Persian Gulf, the Baluchis and the Turkomans to the east. Last week there even came a brief incursion by the Iraqis across their disputed frontier. The Kurds are most likely to cause trouble next. These flinty, well-armed peasants, isolated in their mountain hideaways, have in the past fought more fiercely for independence than Iran's other dissident minorities, and a cease-fire agreement that they signed last month with the Khomeini government just expired...
Khomeini also reacted cautiously, pleading that Iranians cease fighting among themselves and concentrate "on the confrontation with the U.S." But he acted quickly to forestall trouble in the province of Kurdistan, to the south of Azerbaijan. The 4 million Kurds, who revolted unsuccessfully against Tehran's rule last summer, had boycotted the referendum too. Late last week Khomeini's revolutionary guards that were supposed to pull out of Kurdistan stayed on. The Ayatullah also faces potential trouble among Iran's other minorities, particularly the Baluchi tribesmen in the southeast, Turkomans in the northeast and the Arabs...