After Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev Tuesday harshly criticized Iran's decision to hold military drills close to the countries' shared border, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh revealed what was truly behind the unusual exercises being conducted by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Iranian army.

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"The drills carried out by our country in the northwest border areas... are a question of sovereignty," Khatibzadeh said in a statement on the ministry's website.

Tehran "will take all measures it judges necessary for its national security," he said, adding that "Iran will not tolerate the presence of the Zionist regime near our borders" – an allusion to Azerbaijan's friendly relations with Iran's enemy Israel.

Tensions between Baku and Tehran have flared in recent weeks after Azerbaijani police and customs officials began imposing a "road tax" on Iranian trucks shipping fuel and other goods to neighboring Armenia. A section of the main route to Armenia passes through Azerbaijan on land Armenian forces occupied for decades until last year's 44-day war between them over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev had criticized Tehran over the drills, calling them "a very surprising event."

"Every country can carry out any military drill on its own territory. It's their sovereign right. But why now, and why on our border?" he said in an interview with Turkish news agency Anadolu published on Monday.

Iran hadn't held military drills near the border since Azerbaijan became independent from the former Soviet Union almost 30 years ago, he said.

Aliyev said Iran ignored Azerbaijan's calls for many years to stop transporting goods to Nagorno-Karabakh, an ethnic Armenian enclave that's internationally recognized as Azerbaijani territory. No Iranian truck has entered Nagorno-Karabakh since Azerbaijan started imposing the tax, Aliyev said.

Iran's ambassador in Baku, Seyyed Abbas Musavi, said the exercises "can't be seen as a threat to our friends," and that Azerbaijan had been told about them months earlier, according to the Baku-based APA news service. Iranian officials have also told private companies to stop transporting goods to Nagorno-Karabakh, Musavi said.

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A senior cleric in Iran last week defended the IRGC's decision to hold military drills near the border with Azerbaijan as "a message to Israel not to make any mistakes," according to Iran's semi-official Fars news agency, in a reference to Israel's ties to Azerbaijan.

Iran and Azerbaijan share a border of around 430 miles. Relations have soured as of late because of the reported use of Israeli arms during the recent Nagorno-Karabakh flare-up.

i24NEWS contributed to this report.

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Iran recently assassinated a leader in a "terrorist organization" that had planned to perpetrate attacks in the country and was aided by a foreign intelligence service, Iranian news agency Tasnim reported.

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According to the brief report, the senior operative was killed during an arrest raid carried out by the Iranian intelligence services, during which "key figures" in the organization were detained.

The report did not specify which foreign nation had helped the members of the cell, but did claim it was one of the "enemies of the Iranian people."

Meanwhile, Iran also issued a threat against Azerbaijan, its neighbor to the north, claiming that remarks made by senior officials in the country aided Iran's enemies, "particularly the Zionist entity."

The warning was issued by Mahmoud Abbaszadeh Meshkini, the spokesman of the National Security and Foreign Policy Committee of the Iranian Parliament.

"I believe the things that were said by senior Azeri officials cause tensions between the countries [Iran and Azerbaijan] and help countries that want the worse for the region, such as the Zionist entity. Therefore, Azerbaijan's leaders need to be careful with their declarations, so that the relations between the countries are not harmed by childish remarks," said Abbaszadeh Meshkini.

The Iranian lawmaker was referring to comments from Azeri officials, among them President Ilham Aliyev, criticizing Tehran's regional conduct, specifically its policies during the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

In an exclusive interview with Israel Hayom in April, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov said ties between Baku and Jerusalem were "close and mutually beneficial" and cover "political, economic, military and other fields."

The scope of the two nations' deep friendship was revealed during the Nagorno-Karabakh war, which Azerbaijan won resoundingly in part with the help of Israeli weapons.

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The Armenian Unified Infocenter reported the aircraft was an Israeli-manufactured IAI Harop kamikaze drone that crossed from Azerbaijan to Iranian territory and was shot down by Iranian forces or crashed in Ardebil, not far from fighting between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces in the Nagorno-Karabakh region.

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The IAI Harop is a loitering munition developed by Israel Aerospace Industries and is designed to target enemy air defense systems.

IRNA noted that Iran has repeatedly asked for the settlement of the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia and urged cessation of hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh.

The dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh started in 1988 and led to a hot war in 1992.

Half of Nagorno's population, 75,000 people, has been displaced due to Turkish-backed Azerbaijan attacks.

The United States on Tuesday urged both sides to adhere to a Russia-brokered ceasefire reached over the weekend.

After more than 10 hours of marathon talks in Moscow, foreign ministers from Armenia and Azerbaijan signed a ceasefire deal that took effect Saturday. Russia has a security pact with Armenia, but it also has cultivated warm ties with Azerbaijan, allowing it to play mediator.

But immediately after the deal took effect, both Armenia and Azerbaijan have accused each other of breaching it with continued attacks.

On Tuesday, Azerbaijani officials said Armenian forces shelled some of its regions, and Nagorno-Karabakh officials said Azerbaijan launched "large-scale military operations" along the front line. Each party customarily denies the other side's claims.

IRNA said that since the clashes started, more than 50 rockets have hit the border areas of Eastern Azerbaijan.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tweeted that both countries must "implement their commitments" to a ceasefire and stop targeting civilian areas.

Turkey, which has taken a highly visible role during the current hostilities to support its ally Azerbaijan, has criticized other nations for failing to demand the withdrawal of Armenian forces from Nagorno-Karabakh.

"We have said countless times that the only solution to this problem is for Armenia to withdraw from Azerbaijani territory," Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said after talks with his Swedish counterpart, Ann Linde, who urged an immediate ceasefire.

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