Police turn protesters away from Iranian Embassy in Azerbaijan

About 15 activists from the opposition National Independence of Azerbaijan party tried to approach the embassy in the capital, Baku, but were chased away by police who detained three demonstrators for violating public order but later released them with a warning, police and party members said.

The demonstrators gathered a few dozen meters (yards) from the embassy without police interference and read a statement saying that Azeris "are subjected to oppression and humiliation" in Iran and that some Azeri activists there have been killed or tortured.

Azeris, a Turkic ethnic group, are Iran's largest minority, making up about a quarter of its 70 million people, most of whom are ethnic Persians. Ethnic Azeris rioted last year in Iran after a state-run newspaper published a cartoon showing a cockroach speaking Azeri.

Iran's government is wary of ethnic Azeris, who are concentrated in the northern areas close to Azerbaijan and Azerbaijanis are concerned about Iranian influence in the former Soviet republic, which is overwhelmingly Muslim but is a secular state that has cordial ties with Washington and contributes the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq. The Associated Press

/The International Herald Tribune/