A senior Iranian official says Tehran is pursuing through diplomatic channels Azerbaijan’s move to register the name of Iranian poet Nezami Ganjavi as an Azeri literary figure.
Iran’s Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicrafts Organization (CHTHO) has been following up on the issue through the Iranian Foreign Ministry since two weeks ago, said CHTHO head Mohammad Ali Najafi.

He expressed hope that Iran and Azerbaijan would settle the issue.

Baku has falsely claimed that the renowned Persian poet is of Azeri origin.

Earlier this month, Azerbaijan’s state-controlled news agency, APA, quoted Azeri Foreign Ministry spokesman Elman Abdullayev as saying that Ganjavi is an Azerbaijani poet.

According to the report, the Republic of Azerbaijan has, in a bid to distort Ganjavi’s Iranian identity, banned the recitation and translation of those of his poems in which he has praised the grandeur of Iran.

Baku has also destructed the Persian inscriptions at Ganjavi’s tomb in Ganja, the second largest city in Azerbaijan.

The Azeri government has been waging an extensive campaign to falsify the identity of the renowned 12th century Persian poet, whose formal name was Jamal ad-Din Abu Muhammad Ilyas ibn-Yusuf ibn-Zakki.

Moreover, in 2012, the Heydar Aliyev Foundation, which is run by Azerbaijan’s First Lady Mehriban Aliyeva, paid Rome City Municipality EUR 110,000 to install a monument of Nezami in the Villa Borghese Park in the Italian capital.

This is while Nezami has not written any poems in Azeri, and the Republic of Azerbaijan gained independence from Russia only 22 years ago.

By Press TV

 

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