For over a century, Turkey has pursued a deliberate policy of erasing your deep Iranian roots—roots that stretch back to Atropatene and the broader Iranian cultural world—and replacing them with a purely Turkic narrative that serves Ankara’s interests rather than your own history. This was not accidental. It was systematic.
Under Erdoğan, that project has taken a new form: an attempt to Islamize Azerbaijan, to pull your secular society toward a more theocratic, politically Islamic model aligned with Turkish regional ambitions. The “one nation, two states” slogan has always been less about brotherhood and more about subordination.
A free Iran under the leadership of Reza Pahlavi changes the equation. It would restore a strong, secular, Iranian-centered counterweight in the region. It would remove the IRGC’s capacity to export its ideology and disrupt the Erdoğanist networks that currently exploit religious and cultural pressures. The result would be practical: the hybrid IRGC–Erdoğanist efforts that push social conservatism, including hijab-related pressures and political Islam, lose their external sponsors and operational space. Azerbaijan would face less external ideological interference, not more.
Supporting a free, secular Iran is not nostalgia or foreign interference. It is the most direct way to preserve Azerbaijan’s independence from both Turkish cultural erasure and Islamist political engineering. Your history is Iranian as well as Turkic. Reclaiming that balance weakens those who seek to erase your identity.