Iran says it will provide information by Tuesday about Farid Safarli, an Azerbaijani student who went missing after traveling to Iran, according to his family.
Farid Safarli’s mother, Dilara Asgarova, told VOA’s Azerbaijani Service that she met Friday with the deputy ambassador of Iran to Azerbaijan. The official said the Iranian Embassy would respond by April 4 to a letter from Azerbaijan’s Foreign Affairs Ministry about Safarli’s disappearance, according to Asgarova.
“The deputy ambassador said that they spoke with the authorities in Iran. At the latest, information about Farid will be given on Tuesday of next week,” she said.
Safarli had been studying at a German university when he traveled to Iran on Feb. 20 to meet his girlfriend and then disappeared. His family has not heard from him since March 4.
Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent a letter to the Iranian Embassy inquiring about Safarli on March 9 and there has yet to be a response.
Asgarova said she still does not know about her son’s condition and continues to search for him, which has included travels to Germany and Iran.
She described her searches in Iran as “fruitless.”
“We approached the Iranian police and sent a request to the court through a lawyer to provide information about Farid, and there was nothing else we could do,” she said.
Earlier, Asgarova told VOA that Safarli met his girlfriend, who is an Iranian citizen, in Jena, Germany, where she was participating in a medical training program at a local university.
"After the training, she returned to Iran. Nevertheless, they maintained connection via phone calls. They decided to meet in Istanbul. Farid went to Istanbul, but she could not get her visa at the time. So, Farid went to Iran from Istanbul," Asgarova said.
Asgarova, who earlier traveled to Germany in the search for her son, said German police were able to get access to the information on Safarli’s laptop, which she had found in his apartment.
“They recovered phone numbers, photos, names, part of [the girlfriend’s] surname, workplace, just a lot of information about Farid's girlfriend," she said.
German police also confirmed with Pegasus Airlines that Safarli had not flown anywhere since arriving in Tehran last month.
This story originated in VOA’s Azerbaijani Service, with Tapdig Farhadoglu, Aziza Goyushzade, and Parvana Bayramova contributing.
