BAKU – Israel and Azerbaijan both face hostility from Iran, President Isaac Herzog noted, wrapping up his visit to Baku, the capital, on Wednesday.
Azerbaijan is “aware of Iranian hostility towards it, going back to the establishment of the state,” Herzog said, pointing to an Iran-backed shooting attack on an Azerbaijani parliamentarian this year.
Herzog spoke of the Iranian threat publicly, in his remarks to the press after his meeting with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev a day earlier, but Aliyev did not.
“Just a visit by an Israeli leader here makes a statement” to Iran, a source in Herzog’s entourage said. That being said, “no country wants to be made out to be the secret weapon against Iran.”
The reverse dynamic was on display with regard to Israeli weapons sales to Azerbaijan; Aliyev mentioned it, but Herzog did not. Aliyev was even photographed with Israeli Harop drones last year, during a time of heightened tensions with Iran.
The source in Herzog’s delegation said that Israeli arms did not come up in the meeting between the presidents, as that is the Defense Ministry’s department.
President Isaac Herzog leads the first round of judicial reform negotiations in the President’s Residence in Jerusalem on March 28, 2023 (credit: KOBI GIDEON/GPO)“The best thing for Israel is to reach a broad agreement, allowing us to rise out of the straits of this difficult period that threatens to destroy us from the inside.”
Isaac Herzog
The president insisted in a briefing to journalists that the relationship between Israel and Azerbaijan is “not just Iran and defense; it’s also about trade, tourism and energy.”
“We offered them to be partners in gas reservoirs in Israel,” Herzog said. “They have a gas pipeline from here to Italy under the Adriatic Sea. Because of the Russia-Ukraine war, their strategic value rose as a provider of oil and gas.”
Azerbaijan is the largest provider of fuel to Israel and makes up over a third of oil imports into Israel.
Baku also seeks to compete with Georgia for Israeli tourism, and Aliyev wants to increase the number of flights between Israel and Azerbaijan each week, Herzog said.
Herzog also met with leaders of Azerbaijan’s diverse Jewish community, which includes Mountain Jews who arrived in the area thousands of years ago, as well as Ashkenazi Jews who moved to the area to take part in the burgeoning oil business in the 18th century, and Jews who moved from neighboring Georgia.
“I never met a community with such a fascinating story,” Herzog said.
The president also discussed the war between Azerbaijan and Armenia in 2020, in which, as Herzog described it, “Azerbaijan got back 30% of its land, which was recognized by the international commonality as part of Azerbaijan.”
He pointed to the efforts of Aliyev’s wife, Mehriban Aliyeva, who is also Vice President of Azerbaijan, in economic development in the Nagorno-Karbakh region where the war took place.
The source in Herzog’s delegation said that the president has great respect for the Armenian Christian community in Israel and meets with its leader, “but Israel-Azerbaijan relations are strategic, and Israel has its own considerations.”
A date has yet to be set for Herzog’s expected visit to Washington to speak before Congress, and it may be postponed until next year, the source said.
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