{"id":60908,"date":"2026-03-09T23:24:31","date_gmt":"2026-03-09T23:24:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pakistanintheworld.pk\/live\/?p=60908"},"modified":"2026-03-09T23:24:31","modified_gmt":"2026-03-09T23:24:31","slug":"targeting-nakhchivan-by-drones-expert-opinion-by-dr-mehmood-ul-hassan-khan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pakistanintheworld.pk\/live\/targeting-nakhchivan-by-drones-expert-opinion-by-dr-mehmood-ul-hassan-khan\/","title":{"rendered":"Targeting Nakhchivan by Drones ! Expert Opinion – by Dr Mehmood ul Hassan Khan"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Dr Mehmood Ul Hassan Khan is President of The Center for Knowledge and Public Policy, Regional Expert: China, CPEC, BRI & World Affairs. He can be reached at\u00a0 mehmoodulhassankhan7@gmail.com<\/p>\n

\"\"The ongoing war theatre in the Middle East has now another new entrant because the\u00a0 drones allegedly from Iran targeted the passenger terminal of the airport in Azerbaijan’s Nakhchivan and a school near the village of Shakarabad on 05 March. On its part, Tehran denied involvement in the incident. Hence it is a major escalation of the ongoing Israel-US led war against Iran. Hence Iranian retaliation is targeting the economic interests of Azerbaijan.<\/p>\n

It seems that Iran’s strike would be the first Iranian attack on a Caucasus state since the start of the US-Israel war on the country, and raises the prospect of the conflict spreading beyond the Middle East. Hence war is getting from bad to worse involving new countries and communities and destroying the regional peace and stability.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, the timing of today’s strike was notable. A day earlier, Azerbaijan\u2019s president, Ilham Aliyev, had visited the Iranian embassy in Baku and offered condolences over the killing of the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei. However, today’s terrible incident has spoiled the good gesture of Baku.<\/p>\n

Azerbaijan\u2019s Ministry of Foreign Affairs strongly condemned this drone attack launched from the territory of Iran injuring two civilians and causing material damage at the airport. It demanded<\/p>\n

The ministry demanded a clear explanation from Iran and said the country reserves the right to take appropriate response measures. Moreover, it has summoned Iranian Ambassador Mojtaba Demirchilou over the incident.<\/p>\n

Additionally, Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev rightly accused Iran of committing an “act of terror” following the incident. He dubbed Iran\u2019s today’s drone attack as an act of terror against the territory of Azerbaijan, against the state of Azerbaijan. He urged that Iranian officials must provide an explanation to the Azerbaijani side, an apology must be offered, and those who committed this terrorist act must be held criminally liable.<\/p>\n

Resultantly, the Azerbaijani army has been brought to \u201cfull combat readiness, \u201caccording to Aliyev.<\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi denied that the country had targeted Azerbaijan.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Islamic Republic of Iran has not targeted the Republic of Azerbaijan,\u201d said Gharibabadi in comments carried by Iran\u2019s Tasnim news agency. \u201cWe do not target our neighbouring countries.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moreover, \u201cIran\u2019s policy is only to strike the military bases of its enemies\u201d that are active in the region and used to attack Iran, including those of the US and Israel, he added.<\/p>\n

Obviously, the proposed land corridor has been dubbed by the \u201cTrump Route for International Peace and Prosperity\u201d (TRIPP), giving the US development rights for connecting Azerbaijan to its Nakhchivan exclave and creating a passage between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Thus, the drone attack of Iran in Nakhchivan does not carry a good signal for regional peace, prosperity and connectivity.<\/p>\n

In the past, the Iranian government opposed the planned transit route also known as the Zangezur corridor, fearing it would cut the country off from Armenia and the rest of the Caucasus while bringing potentially hostile foreign forces close to its borders.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, Iran has long been accusing the Azeri government of turning Azerbaijan into an Israeli spy base. However, it has been only a political hype and false & fake propaganda of the Iranian government and does not have any substance.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, today\u2019s drone strikes seem to be a clear message to the Azeri government to stay away from the US and Israel.<\/p>\n

The writer submits that the drone incident will raise tensions in the Caucasus regions. Regional countries mainly, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia have all observed neutrality in the war, keen to avoid being drawn into the widening instability.<\/p>\n

The writer fears that since Armenia and Azerbaijan share borders with Iran therefore the prospect of a migration crisis would be high.<\/p>\n

The writer is of the view that further attacks on Azerbaijan could have far-reaching consequences for global air travel, which has already been heavily disrupted by airspace closures across the Middle East. Azerbaijan\u2019s airspace has become a key corridor for flights between Asia and Europe seeking to avoid Russian airspace, and any disruption could create fresh headaches for airlines. Even the government of Pakistan has officially requested the government of Azerbaijan to accommodate its citizens migrating from Tehran.<\/p>\n

The writer worries that possible Iranian targets in Azerbaijan could include the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, which carries crude that accounts for about 30-40% of Israel\u2019s oil imports.<\/p>\n

In summary, the writer predicts that Azerbaijan\u2019s threats to retaliate against Iran could also place Turkey in a difficult position. Ankara maintains long standing diplomatic and trade relations with Tehran, but it is also bound by close strategic and military ties with Baku. Pakistan-Azerbaijan and Turkiye have trilateral security dialogue and strong military cooperation also urging Tehran to avoid any further attack on Baku.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr Mehmood Ul Hassan Khan is President of The Center for Knowledge and Public Policy, Regional Expert: China, CPEC, BRI & World Affairs. He can be reached at\u00a0 mehmoodulhassankhan7@gmail.com The ongoing war theatre in the Middle East has now another new entrant because the\u00a0 drones allegedly from Iran targeted the passenger terminal of the airport […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":60688,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90],"tags":[79,8148,2030,8149,2704,1083,197,285,758],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistanintheworld.pk\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60908"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistanintheworld.pk\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistanintheworld.pk\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanintheworld.pk\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanintheworld.pk\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60908"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanintheworld.pk\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60908\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60909,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanintheworld.pk\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60908\/revisions\/60909"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanintheworld.pk\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistanintheworld.pk\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanintheworld.pk\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistanintheworld.pk\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}