One issue compared to tens of agreements between Iran and Russia.
Like what? Russian air defence was very very important for Iran. They left Iran in the cold big time.
Nonsense. In 2009 there were mass demonstrations in all Iran, from Tehran to Tabriz. Not one of the protests in Iranian-Azerbaijan was separatist in nature, nor against Iran's relations with Armenians.
And again, not one serious census mentions 30 million. Not more than 11 million still speak Azeri in Iran.
Watch this video : [video]
in South-Azerbaijan area in Iran yell Azerbaijan is ours (Turks), Afghanistan is yours (Farsi)...
[video]
Azeri want Azeri schools in south-Azerbaijan
Protestors say: long life Azerbaijan, who do not want, let him be blind!
[video]
At the end Iranians crush Azeri protest
Only half of Iran is ethnic Persian. 25-35 million is Azeri, there are 8-11 million Kurds, couple of million of Arabs, ballouchi, etc
Despite constitutional guarantees of equality, individuals belonging to minorities in Iran, who are believed to number about half of the population of about 70 millions, are subject to an array of discriminatory laws and practices. These include land and property confiscations, denial of state and para-statal employment under the gozinesh criteria and restrictions on social, cultural, linguistic and religious freedoms which often result in other human rights violations such as the imprisonment of prisoners of conscience, grossly unfair trials of political prisoners before Revolutionary Courts, corporal punishment and use of the death penalty, as well as restrictions on movement and denial of other civil rights.
[18] ”
Some Western journalists and commentators have expressed similar views. John Bradley is of the opinion that:
[19]
“ Iran’s ethnic minorities share a widespread sense of discrimination and deprivation toward the central Tehran government. Tehran’s highly centralized development strategy has resulted in a wide socioeconomic gap between the center and the peripheries, where there is also an uneven distribution of power, socioeconomic resources, and sociocultural status. Fueled by these long-standing economic and cultural grievances against Tehran, unrest among the country’s large groups of ethnic minorities is increasing.' The violence in remote regions such as Khuzestan and Baluchistan clearly has ethnic components, but the far greater causes of the poverty and unemployment that vexes members of those ethnic groups are government corruption, inefficiency, and a general sense of lawlessness, which all Iranians, including Persians, must confront.
