.Azerbaijan marks Solidarity Day.

Azerbaijan marked Solidarity Day on Wednesday to show solidarity with its people around the world, ITAR-TASS news agency reported from the Azeri capital, Baku.

A group of young Azerbaijanis broke into neighbouring Iran on 31st December 1989 as a protest against the former Soviet authorities preventing Azeris from communicating with relatives living across the border.

Azeri President Heydar Aliyev urged Azeris on Tuesday not to forget their language, faith and national traditions.

The republic has marked Solidarity Day since 1992.

About 30 million ethnic Azerbaijanis live in Iran, about 2 million in Turkey and about 200,000 in the USA and Germany, the agency said.

BBC Monitoring (http://www.monitor.bbc.co.uk), based in Caversham in southern England, selects and translates information from radio, television, press, news agencies and the Internet from 150 countries in more than 70 languages.