Georgia's former President Mikheil Saakashvili made a notable post about Georgian Azerbaijanis on his social media account.
Modern.az reports that Saakashvili, writing about events during his time in power, stated that Iran's influence among Georgian Azerbaijanis has increased.
Sharing a photo of a group of worshippers holding a picture of Iran's supreme leader Seyyed Ali Khamenei, who was killed as a result of US-Israeli attacks, at the Marneuli Central Imam Ali Mosque, Mikheil Saakashvili noted the following:
"This is an existential issue for each of us. How did a significant part of our Azerbaijani population become supporters of Iran's man-eating regime? How is it that young people in Marneuli run with portraits of Khamenei?
Or how did our Azerbaijanis become very easy "recruits" for Iran's terrorist special services? Islamists from Iran and Iran's intelligence services have grown stronger. Recently, several individuals from Kvemo Kartli have been arrested in European countries for spying for Iran. The influence of Islamists is particularly strong among young people. Azerbaijan has closed its border to them due to fear of religious radicalism".
The former president spoke about the xenophobic attitudes shown towards Azerbaijanis until the period he came to power:
"Until the Rose Revolution, Azerbaijanis lived in isolation. They were mainly engaged in agriculture, did not know Georgian, and did not participate in public life. The police brutally suppressed them. Once during Shevardnadze's time, when I was Minister of Justice, I boarded a bus going to the Deserters' Market in Bolnisi. I sat in the last seat, wearing sunglasses and a hat, so they wouldn't recognize us. At the same time, we were videotaping how the traffic police stopped us. Before reaching the market, they stopped us exactly 21 times and demanded money each time. When the Azerbaijanis ran out of money, near the entrance to Tbilisi, the police started taking tomatoes, onions, and brooms from their hands. I showed this video to Shevardnadze and his ministers at a Security Council meeting. The President's reaction was zero, while the ministers laughed. Our government abolished the police from 2004 onwards, and the suppression of people stopped. Then we began to take serious steps for the integration of Azerbaijanis. One of the first tasks undertaken by Minister of Education Kakha Lomiya was to facilitate university admission for Azerbaijani and Armenian youth. After this, Azerbaijani youth who previously only went to Azerbaijan to study remained in Georgia. Furthermore, we later sent Georgian master's students to regions inhabited by minorities as Georgian language teachers and paid them 1500 lari per month. This was approximately 900 dollars at that time (approximately 1600 dollars today, considering inflation).
In addition, we began promoting Azerbaijanis in state bodies. Was this enough? - Probably not. But overall, we had started moving in the right direction".
