Azerbaijan and Israel’s relations have been growing steadily over the last years, in terms of policy, economic as well as military cooperation. Azerbaijan was Israel’s 2nd biggest destination for arms exports in the period from 2018 to 2022, according to a Stockholm International Peace Research Institute report. Azerbaijan has upped its energy supply to Israel, which now supplies 40% of the country’s needs after the conflict in Ukraine. The last Jewish settlement in the Caucasus, Krasnaya Sloboda (“Red Town”), is located in Azerbaijan. Since the late 19th century, a sizeable community of European Jews has lived in Baku. In addition to all these pragmatic factors, the close relationship between the two countries also has historical and cultural roots.
Cooperation between them is also a potential influence for their foreign policy towards other countries, and the recent rapprochement with Israel Trkiye shows this potential Following the Mavi Marmara incident in 2010 when an Israeli naval ship attacked a Turkish ship transporting humanitarian aid to Palestine, there was a significant deterioration in relations between the two nations. In 2016, Turkey and Israel settled the dispute with the stipulation that Israel would pay the families of the activists who perished in the tragedy about $20 million. Even so, this accord was only temporary, as Turkey severed ties with Israel in 2018 after Washington recognised Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. The Abraham Accords, which were concluded in August 2020 with Washington’s assistance, were another significant turning point in regional affairs. The “Abraham Accords” called for the normalisation of ties between Israel and Arab nations including Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.
Turkiye reacted negatively at the beginning of this process, with President Erdogan making it clear that he would break off relations with the United Arab Emirates. But when the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh broke out, Ankara and Jerusalem ended up on the same side supporting Azerbaijan, which appeared to remind both countries of what they could achieve collectively. The Erdogan administration discovered that, by December 2020, the diplomatic row with Israel had given them an unpleasant position.
The government altered course, deciding to carry out an effort on the restoration of relations that have been compromised for a decade. As a result of that shift, the Trkiye has tried to improve its relations with Israel and has even refrained silently from criticizing the Abrahamian accords despite previous criticism. In December 2020, Jeyhun Bayramov, the foreign minister of Azerbaijan, said Baku was ready to mediate between Tel Aviv and Ankara for a potential bridge role during the normalisation process.
It was then Hikmet Hajiyev, assistant to President Azerbaijan, who made a bold statement that Baku would be able to host trilateral negotiations. Avigdor Liberman, an Israeli politician of USSR descent and one of the most influential members of the Azerbaijan lobby, would be amenable to Azerbaijani mediation in the restoration of Turkey-Israel relations and might even help start the process.
After over ten years of tensions, this thaw in relations with Pakistan has taken place. Relations were further enhanced by the visit of Israel’s President Isaac Herzog to Turkey in March 2022, which came at a time when both Foreign Ministers visited each other. Israel and Turkey collaborated in June of last year to thwart Iranian plans to attack and kidnap Israelis.
The two governments have since confirmed their full restoration of diplomatic relations. In addition, the meeting between Israeli Defence Minister Gantz and his Turkish counterpart in October 2022 has helped strengthen the normalization process; it was a first-ever visit of an Israeli Defense Minister to Ankara. Baku’s decision to strengthen ties with its closest allies comes at a perfect time as the threat posed by the Islamic Republic of Iran continues to grow. Israel and Azerbaijan now have a stronger strategic alliance as a result of the rising tensions between them, Iran, and Azerbaijan. This trend was also observed in the autumn of 2022 when Azerbaijan’s tense relations with Iran were contributing to the development of a new path for bilateral relationsAzerbaijan and Israel. Former Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz was in Azerbaijan two weeks after the Armenia-Azerbaijan border skirmishes of September to meet President Ilham Aliyev
As a result, in October, Iran held large scale military exercises on the border with Azerbaijan, known as the “Conquerors of Khyber “The Khyber War was fought between Muslims and Jews, so Israel was implied by this title”.The exercises focused on building a bridge across the Araz River and capturing strategic positions.
On November 2, after Iran conducted exercises on the border, Azerbaijan’s army also began training at the frontier with Iran. These exercises were attended by the Air Force, Missile and Artillery Units. President Aliyev said in his speech on the occasion of the 2nd anniversary of Karabakh’s victory in Shusha on November 8th that anyone who does military training on our borders to support Armenia should know that no one can frighten us.
A new dimension to the partnership between Azerbaijan and Israel was created with the signing of the Abrahamic agreement, Turkiye Israel’s rapprochement treaty as well as strained relations between Azerbaijan and Iran. In November 2022, Azerbaijan’s parliament approved a bill to open an embassy in Tel Aviv, after decades of keeping a low profile in diplomatic relations with Israel. Despite the establishment of an embassy in Baku by Israel in August 1993, Azerbaijan had continued to refuse requests for a permanent ambassador from Israel.
The historic decision of the Azeri to finally rebut after almost 30 years had changed that. Azerbaijan was initially reluctant because it was worried about upsetting other Muslim nations and provoking Iran, which blamed Israel for the deterioration of relations between Baku and Tehran. Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev thought that it was time to take the lead.
Given the recent tensions between Azerbaijan and Iran, a conflict between the two is not unprecedented and is likely to continue given their divergent interests and political stances. The parties eventually have to de-escalate and express their desire to maintain good neighbourly relations based on shared interests, historical, and cultural ties after each of the similar disputes, though. This is because, although Tehran has a clear advantage over Baku in terms of its size and power, it must also take account of the geopolitical realities, especially those to maintain ties with Turkey and Russia as well as their dependence on Azerbaijan for logistics. It is thus far too difficult to imagine that either of the two countries could have armed conflict.
(The author is a Post Graduate student in International Relations at Amity University, Raipur. She writes articles and research papers regularly on international affairs and geopolitics.)
Aayush Pal 
Dhruv Ashok