Iran blasts Azerbaijan for neglecting Persian heritage

Iranian Vice-President and Head of the Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicrafts Organization (CHTHO) Mohammad Ali Najafi in a letter to UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova protested against Azerbaijan’s negligence with regard to the Persian heritage existing in the Central Asian country. The Baku government has removed tiles containing Persian poetry from the tomb of renowned Iranian poet Nezami Ganjavi in Azerbaijan. “We request the UNESCO, which is in charge of cultural affairs on the international scene, to take immediate measures to halt this non-cultural act and return it (Nezami Ganjavi's tomb) to its previous state,” Najafi said in his letter to Bokova. He further warned in his letter that in recent years Azerbaijan has pursued the policy of undermining the Persian culture and language. Nezami was born in Ganja, one of the major cities of the current Azerbaijan which was part of the Seljuk Empire in Iran in 1141 AD.