TEHRAN ATTACKS BAKU OVER RADICAL ISLAMISTS.

An officially-approved commentary on Radio Tehran warned "brotherly" Azerbaijan against taking steps that "only benefit the two countries’ enemies: the United States and the Zionist regime." The radio condemned recent measures by the Azerbaijani authorities against Iran-oriented Islamic activists. It accused Azerbaijan’s state security minister Namig Abbasov of disrupting relations between the two countries through his recent, public allegations that Iranian secret services supported radical Islamists in Azerbaijan. (Voice of the Islamic Republic of Iran, January 28)

Abbasov in fact announced last week that a group of leading Islamic activists who were arrested last year will be tried next month on charges of subversion and links to the secret services of a neighboring country, which he clearly implied was Iran. The Azerbaijani authorities seek to contain the growth of the Islamic party and must also reckon with the emergence of a Khomeini Committee in Baku. (Turan, January 18 and 27)

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