On January 27, an armed individual entered the Azerbaijani embassy in Tehran, shot the security chief dead and injured two security officials. The attacker, 53-year-old Yasin Hosseinzadeh, is an Iranian from the city of Urmia and married to an Azerbaijani citizen. Hosseinzadeh, who was detained and questioned after the attack, claimed that his wife was being held hostage in the embassy for months and that he had organized the attack to save her. Iranian officials confirmed the suspect’s statement about the motive behind the attack and claimed that the issue is a family one and has no political dimension; however, the attack has already acquired a political character in terms of its consequences. The Iranian government and the Minister of Foreign Affairs Hossein Amir-Abdollahian expressed their discomfort regarding the incident. Abdollahian spoke with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan Jeyhun Bayramov and visited the injured embassy staff at the hospital. The Tehran police chief was dismissed after the incident. The Revolutionary Guards made a statement, saying that they would take the necessary steps to prevent the attack from harming Azerbaijani-Iranian relations. This incident marks a new stage in the Iran-Azerbaijan tension, which has been increasing in recent years, and threatens to derail the already strained relations even further. After Azerbaijan liberated occupied Karabakh in 2020, tension emerged between Baku and Tehran. Against the possibility of the opening of the Zangezur corridor, which will cut off Iran’s land connection to Armenia, Iran sent harsh messages and stated that it would not consent to any border change. In this direction, the Baku administration hardened its tone against Iran, which... Read more on Politics Today: Why Iran Is Becoming More Vulnerable to Foreign and Domestic Attacks [Politics Today, January 31, 2023]