Lonan3 Posted November 13, 2006 Share Posted November 13, 2006 Guardian Article: Google has provoked the wrath of Iran's notoriously suspicious authorities by appearing to question the country's sovereignty over the province of Azerbaijan in an entry on its Google Video website. In a move tailor-made to wound Iranian patriotic pride and arouse a blizzard of protest, the Azeri provincial capital, Tabriz, is located "in southern Azerbaijan, currently in the territory of Iran". To add insult to injury, the ancient city is listed as being in Azerbaijan, rather than Iran. Tabriz and southern Azerbaijan have belonged to Iran for more than 4,000 years. The reformist Etemad newspaper accused the company of a "strange, suspicious and dubious act" in apparently trying to relocate Tabriz - one of the major flashpoints of the 1979 Islamic revolution - to the independent former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan, to the north of Iran. The republic consists of territory annexed from Iran by Russia in 1813. Joseph Stalin tried to seize the rest of Azerbaijan after the second world war but was rebuffed by US and British opposition. The Iranians appear to believe its part of a plot to destabilize the area and, although I'm definitely not a conspiracy theorist, given the record of the CIA I would think its every bit as valid an opinion than what will probably be dismissed an 'accident.' Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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