Iranian's national integrity and the Southern Azerbaijan issue

Iran is situated as a gateway of the Central Asia to both the Middle East and Europe in terms of geopolitics and geostrategy. Iran has a multi-ethnic structure. The Islamic Republic of Iran currently is home to many ethic peoples including without limitation to Turks, Kurds, Arabs, Balochs, Lurs and Turkmens as well as Persian. Iran has imposed assimilation and Persianization policies in addition to several public, legal, administrative and social policies to secure its national integrity. As a result of the identity policiesimplemented in Iran, all ethnic communities in the country are driven to protect their own national identities. Modernism led Iran to the Constitutional Revolution and the unification of the nationalist movements between 1920 and 1924, remaining in effect as the core political ideology until the Islamic Revolution in 1979. Following the Islamic Revolution, Iran experienced some sets of political, administrative, societal and social transformation and this revolutionary transformation reached to a level which can be compared to all prominent modern revolutions. Iran built its national identity on the core principles of Islam and Persian nationalism in the course of revolution. The pre-revolutionary identity policies imposed on the ethnic communities remains in effect on the ethnic communities in Iran.This thesis study is aimed to cover major elements included in the foundation and development of Iran's national integrity, identity policies and strategies, arguments and ideologies adopted in the course of Iran's nationalization process. In addition to this aim, Iranian identity ideologies suggested and adopted to materialize its national integrity (Persion nationalisms), how it affects other ethnic communities including particularly the Southern Azerbaijani Turks and surrounding regions and magnitudes of response to these effects are examined in relation to the said elements.