TEHRAN (IRNA) — Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in a message reacted to the recitation of a piece of poetry by the Turkish President Recep Teyyep Erdogan and said no one can talk about our beloved Azerbaijan.

Erdogan travelled to Baku on Thursday to attend a military parade of Azerbaijani forces on the occasion of the liberation of the Armenian-occupied territories. At the ceremony, which was also attended by Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev, he recited a piece of poetry including separatist sentiments about the Aras River which runs along the Iran-Azerbaijan border.

In reaction, Zarif wrote today in his Twitter account:

Pres. Erdogan was not informed that what he ill-recited in Baku refers to the forcible separation of areas north of Aras from Iranian motherland.

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Didn’t he realize that he was undermining the sovereignty of the Republic of Azerbaijan.

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NO ONE can talk about OUR beloved Azerbaijan.

What is the Republic of Azerbaijan today was ceded to Russia in consequences of the Russo-Persian Wars which were a series of conflicts between 1651 and 1828. Russia and Persia (Iran) fought these wars over disputed governance of territories and countries in the Caucasus. The main territories disputed were Aran (modern Azerbaijan), Georgia and Armenia, as well as much of Dagestan — generally referred to as Transcaucasia — and considered part of the Safavid Iran prior to the Russo-Persian Wars. Over the course of the five Russo-Persian Wars, the governance of these regions transferred between the two empires. Between the Second and Third Russo-Persian Wars, there was an interbellum period in which a number of treaties were drawn up between the Russian and the Persian Empires. The Treaty of Gulistan was signed on 24 October 1813 between the Russian Empire and Persia as a conclusion to the Fourth Russo-Persian War. Persia ceded all territories north of the Aras River, including Dagestan, Mingrelia, Abkhazia, Derbent, Baku, Shaki, Quba, Talesh, Shirvan, Karabakh and Ganja. The treaty additionally permitted Russia exclusive military rights to the Caspian Sea and trade rights within Persia.