Araz News: Debates on a removed statue of old Persian poet Ferdowsi get hard.

After municipality of Salmas city of South Azerbaijan (Western Azerbaijan Province) changed name of “Ferdowsi Square” to “Enghelab (Revolution) Square” and removed statue of poet Ferdowsi from square Persian nationalists from inside and outside the Iranian regime react furiously while it is welcomed by Azerbaijani people and activists.

Some Iranian parliamentarians showed nervous reactions.

Pro-regime parliamentarian Mansour Haqiqat Pour who represents Azerbaijani city of Ardabil in Parliament told Ferdowsi is the symbol of Iranian resistance against Turks and that Turkish is not mother language of Azerbaijanis but the Azeri language of Azerbaijanis is an accent of Persian.

While many Persian social media users launched campaigns against mayor of Salmas, 21 Persian scholars wrote an open protest letter to Iranian authorities.

They insist that the name and statue must return.

Mr. Mayor has issued a statement that he is misunderstood and that he did not intend to eliminate Ferdowsi from his city. He stressed that the municipality will compensate the case.

Reportedly unseen heavy pressure is put on Mr. Mayor.

This is while many Azerbaijanis especially Azerbaijani right activists welcomed and appreciated Salmas’s municipality’s act. They have launched campaigns on social media and Azerbaijani web sites to support Salmas’s mayor.

Azerbaijanis express they will take their own measures if the name and statue come back against Azerbaijani people’s will.

Azerbaijani activists say while Iranian regime and Persian intellectuals pay no attention on their language and culture and even try to eliminate it there no reason to exalt a poet in Azerbaijan who is father of the Persian nationalism.

Abul-Qasim Ferdowsi the Persian poet who lived between 940 and 1020 years is accepted as father of Persian nationalism. In his poems he tried to motivate Persian people against Turks and Arabs who were rivals of Persians at that time.

His “Shahnameh” book includes many anti-turk and anti-arab poems. Main theme of Shahnameh is about wars between Iran (land of Aryans-Persians) and Turan (Land of Turks).