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Great summary on the topic, had to post it here.
https://www.reddit.com/r/azerbaijan/...m_source=share
On the difference between North & South Azerbaijanis:Conclusion: Azerbaijani Turks are situated in a historically rich and ethnically diverse region. Their genetic history reflects that. They primarily descend from Iranic people followed by strong/significant secondary Anatolian and Medieval Turkic descent, and some notable Caucasian related ancestry as well. The ethnogenesis of Azerbaijani Turks began with the settlement of Seljuk era Oghuz Turks in Azerbaijan and their intermarriage with the mainly Iranic locals, followed by centuries of back migrations into Azerbaijan from Anatolian Turkic tribes/groups (notably the Qizilbash during the Safavid Empire) further intermarrying with the population. To say Azerbaijani's are a Turkified Iranic group that just adopted a Turkic language is demonstrably incorrect and completely disingenuous towards the complex ethnic and historical dynamics that have taken place in Azerbaijan during the past 1000 years.
When discussing the ancestry from pre-Turkic Azerbaijani's, Caucasian Albanians and Iranics (more specifically Medes) are commonly brought up. Before getting in-depth into genetics, I personally used to think there would be a noticeable difference between northern and southern Azerbaijani's due to Caucasian Albanians in the north and Medes in the south. There are samples from both Azeris in G25 and when I separated them, there was practically no difference; both had a distance of ~0.010 (compared to the other distances in the list above). So whatever ancestry Azerbaijani's have, based on current samples it seems to be mostly uniform across the region (on average) with a few exceptions like Azerbaijani_Dagestan.
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