Azerbaijan

The medical tourism industry comprises a combination of tourism and medical services and has attracted the attention of most developed and developing countries during the last decades. This industry has capacities which guarantee progress not only in the economic field, but also in the cultural and political spheres; capacities that can deliver great advantages and opportunities in promoting the power of countries. The main purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of the elements of medical tourism on the creation of new economic and political opportunities. Consistent with this purpose, the focus of this article was to investigate the reasons for the presence of Azerbaijani medical tourists in Iran and the common interests between the two countries. Following an analysis of prominent articles in this field, several factors such as culture, quality, infrastructure, cost, and destination image were identified and discussed in detail. The identified factors were used as the basis of a questionnaire seeking the views of experts active in the field of medical tourism, and the results evaluated using the AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process) method. The factors driving medical tourism were then classified according to their relative priority. The analysis of the experts’ points of view confirmed Iran's current position and future opportunities in the medical tourism industry.

The developmental process of architectural tradition of tower tombs in Azerbaijan during the 12 th – 14 th centuries (AD)  is one of the basic questions in the Iranian history of architecture. Historically, the architectural constructions and decorations were developed in Nakhchivan by the end of 12 th century. Based on the formulated doctrines of the former USSR academy, the late Seljukid architecture in Nakhchivan was indigenous and originated from the local innovations. Turkish art historians have classified the late Seljukid architecture in Nakhchivan as a variety of Turk – Islam tradition in the post- USSR years. These kinds of de- historized studies have not considered the socio- cultural relationships among Qazvin, Maragheh, Tabriz and Nakhchivan within the Iranian cultural context. The main aim of this study is to investigate the general specifications of the 12 th – 14 th centuries (AD) architecture of the tower tombs in Nakhchivan and Maragheh to examine their artistic and technical interactions appeared in the glorious architectural monuments during the Iranian Late Seljukid – Ilkhanid history of architecture. Methodologically, the origin of Nakhchivani tower tombs should be sought in the architectural manner of Maragheh due to the chronological order of their existing Persian and Arabic inscriptions. Although the USSR and Turkish decontextualized subjectivities in the architectural history of Nakhchivan are not well-reviewed, the architecture of the tower tombs in the Late Seljukid Nakhchivan has a processual trajectory initiated from the early Seljukid Kharāghān in Qazvin to the late Seljukid Maragheh and then the Nakhchivani manner of Ajami Nashawi.

The current article aims at studying the elements of continuity and change in Iran’s foreign policy toward the Nagorno-Karabakh crisis during Seyyed Mohammad Khatami, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Hassan Rouhani’s administrations. It tries to answer the question as to which factors have contributed to continuity and change in Iran's foreign policy toward the Nagorno-Karabakh crisis between 1997 and 2018? The article shows that although the principles of Iran’s foreign policy toward the South Caucasus and the Nagorno-Karabakh crisis have not changed during this period, the changing role of the external powers – Russia and the West – as well as different foreign policy priorities defined by the three administrations, have caused changes in Iran's approach to this issue. An inductive approach and a qualitative research method has been used in this article. Official documents, news and research articles have been used as the main sources of data in this article.

The Urartu civilization is one of the old civilizations of the Azerbaijan region. Urartus ruled over northwestern part of Iran, Caucasia, eastern Turkey and even northern part of today Syria. Their language does not belong to Indo-European or Semitic language families. Their language was an agglutinative language. There are lots of inscriptions related to Urartus in East Azerbaijan, West Azerbaijan and Ardabil in northwestern Iran. These inscriptions and Urartu castles in the region have Turkish names. The researcher tried to find out whether there is any relationship between Urartu language and Azerbaijani Turkish language of local people of the region. The cognate based study and comparing roots of the words between ancient Turkish and Urartu language showed that Urartu and Turkish words have the same roots. There are also grammatical similarities between these two languages in using suffixes like –li and –ni for showing relationship and possessiveness. Furthermore, in Urartu language like Kazakh Turkish suffix –u is used to make an infinitive verb. Some Uratian names like Turkish names start with prefix ar/er. The name of some Urartian Gods have meaning in Turkish. As a result, Urartu language must be an Altaic language and a proto-Turkic language.

Art and literature have always been applied as a favorite way of conveying human experiences through centuries to next generations. However, sometimes they have been not used as art for art’s sake. Utilitarian literature and art have usually been abused to misrepresent facts and real human history. World War I was a catastrophic disaster for the whole world, especially for the Muslim people living in the Ottoman empire territory and neighboring regions. Since then the separated small countries have been suffering periodical catastrophes afterword. Literature and art, consequently, were affected by them. According to the attitude of the literary figures and artists toward those historical experiences and human sufferings, their productions have tried to be effective on the world’s attitude toward those events. Ararat is one of them. It is an Armenian movie that was produced in Canada and won 2003’s Canadian Film Festival first prize. The main character of this movie is an Armenian young boy who travels to the city of Van in Türkiye and remember his nation’s past experiences during World War I in the city, according to the producers’ point of view. The main episodes are the flashbacks to the war between Armenian people and Turkic troops in Van through which war crimes are depicted to arouse the audience’s hatred toward Turks in the world. The film producers have inefficiently tried to produce a show through which make the world believe that there has been a genocide by Turkic troops against Armenian people living in the region during World War I. While western world is trying to condemn all hate speeches toward other races, ethnicities and nations around the world, the production of such a film in a country which obviously declares herself as one the most democratic countries in the world does not seem so appropriate to their democratic slogans. Through this essay the researcher will try to analyze it and depict some facts that the producers have tried to misrepresent. Because it is a movie that has dealt with the relationship between the Ottoman Empire and the Armenians living in the territory before World War I.