Regarding the question of whether Azerbaijani is a dialect or a distinct language,
there is an interesting website evoted to the plight of Azerbaijanis in Iran called
Azadtribun.net. You can access articles in English, Farsi or even Swedish, as some Iranian
Azeris have settled in Sweden, as well as Azerbaijani.
But the interesting thing is that the articles in Azerbaijani were listed as being in Turkce-Turkish. These articles were in the Latin alphabet.