Iran’s offer to educate Azerbaijani girls who wear hijabs has triggered a diplomatic dispute with Azerbaijan, with Baku accusing Tehran of interfering in its domestic affairs and responding by highlighting restrictions on Azerbaijani-language education in Iran. The exchange intensified on 26 October after Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Science and Education criticised the Iranian initiative. Meanwhile, 55 Azerbaijani non-governmental organisations appealed to Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian to expand opportunities for ethnic Azerbaijanis in Iran to receive education in their mother tongue.

On 22 October, Iranian Minister of Science, Research and Technology Hossein Simaei-Sarraf invited Azerbaijani girls to study at Iranian universities, saying they should not have to abandon their religious head coverings to continue their education. “The doors of Iranian universities are open to girls from the Republic of Azerbaijan to pursue their studies,” he stated in a Iran’s First Vice-President Mohammad Reza Aref expanded the initiative on 25 October, calling on the ministers of health and education and the head of Islamic Azad University to arrange admissions for Azerbaijani schoolchildren as well as university students.

The offer followed by Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei on 20 October, when he urged that the controversy over Azerbaijan’s school dress rules be resolved through mutual understanding and respect for religious rights. According to Baqaei, Azerbaijani citizens could make their views known to their government, and expressed hope that the issue would be settled peacefully, taking shared values and fundamental rights into account. The Iranian Embassy in Baku had also rejected allegations that Tehran was directing protests, describing attempts to link Iran to demonstrations as unfounded.

Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Science and Education, describing it as an inappropriate attempt to interfere in the country’s internal affairs. “No one is permitted to interfere in the internal affairs of our country, including its education policy, and such attempts at interference are firmly rejected,” the ministry wrote. It urged Iranian officials to address their own country’s problems rather than comment on Azerbaijan’s education policy. Baku focused its response on the rights of ethnic Azerbaijanis living in Iran, claiming that the country had no schools offering instruction in Azerbaijani and that Azerbaijani was not used as the language of instruction at universities. Citing an estimated population of around 40 million ethnic Azerbaijanis in Iran, the ministry maintained that they had been deprived of opportunities to receive education in their mother tongue for decades. Azerbaijani parliamentary member Elnara Akimova also that comments by Iranian officials should be considered in light of state sovereignty and the principle of non-interference in domestic affairs.

The dispute over the education of Azerbaijani girls by Azerbaijani civil society. On 26 October, representatives of 55 non-governmental organisations sent an open letter to Pezeshkian urging him to take practical steps to enable ethnic Azerbaijanis in Iran to study in their native language. They called for Azerbaijani-language classes in schools, the establishment of secondary and higher education institutions providing instruction in Azerbaijani, teacher training, textbooks and curricula, and the creation of legal and institutional mechanisms to support mother-tongue education. The signatories argued that such measures would help preserve the language and cultural identity of millions of people. The letter invoked Iran’s constitutional provisions concerning mother-tongue education and proposed Azerbaijani civil society’s assistance with educational and cultural cooperation.