BAKU, Azerbaijan  — The United States and Norway called on authorities in Azerbaijan on Thursday to investigate what rights groups say was a police crackdown on Muslim worshippers in a remote region bordering Iran.

In a joint statement, the U.S. and Norwegian embassies in Baku said their diplomats had been prevented from entering the village of Bananiyar in the Nakhchivan autonomous republic Wednesday by a group of people who verbally threatened them.

Rights groups accuse police in Nakhchivan, geographically separate from the rest of Azerbaijan and bordering Iran, of beating and arresting dozens of worshippers in the village after they observed the Shiite mourning day of Ashura on Dec. 27.

(Reuters)