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The Diplomat
May 12 2012
Israel's Reluctant Friend
May 12, 2012
Talk of allowing its airstrips to be used in a military strike against
Iran thrust Azerbaijan into the spotlight. It doesn't want to be
there.
A new and perhaps surprising country took center stage recently in the
ongoing row over Iran's nuclear program - Azerbaijan. Citing anonymous
`high-level sources' from U.S. diplomatic and intelligence circles, a
controversial article in Foreign Policy at the end of March suggested
the possibility that Israel might have been proffered the use of
Azerbaijani airstrips for any strikes against Iran's nuclear
facilities.
The article attracted impassioned rebuttals from officials and
observers alike. But the question remains: how did Azerbaijan get
sucked into the controversy over Tehran's nuclear plans in the first
place?
Azerbaijan's relations with Israel developed in earnest 20 years ago,
and have grown significantly in depth and scope ever since. With
bilateral trade currently hovering around $4 billion, Azerbaijan is
Israel's top trading partner among Muslim states, and the second
largest source of Israel's oil after Russia.
Conversely, Israel represents Azerbaijan's second largest oil
customer, and via the Ashkelon-Eilat Trans-Israel Pipeline, a crucial
transit point for Azeri oil flowing to Asia's growing markets. Israeli
companies have also made no secret of their stake in the country's
other key, non-energy sectors, including agriculture and
communications. However, it's the military-defense aspect of bilateral
cooperation that has kept Iran on its toes of late.
Israel began modernizing Azerbaijan's ragtag army after its six year,
undeclared war with Armenia led to the loss of the Nagorno-Karabakh
enclave and seven neighboring districts. On February 26 of this year,
Baku and Tel Aviv inked the latest in a series of arms deals, this
time to the tune of $1.6 billion, on the basis of which Israel
Aerospace Industries would supply Heron and Searcher drones,
anti-aircraft and missile defense systems over the coming months and
perhaps years.
This closeness represents everything that relations between Iran and
Azerbaijan ought to have been right from the start, given both
nations' deep historical ties. Azerbaijan was a Persian satrapy under
the Achaemenid, the Parthian and the Sassanian empires, and the Shiite
Safavids credited for laying the foundations of modern Iran were
mainly ethnic Azeris, a sub-branch of the Turkic peoples. Only after
Iran was twice defeated by the Russians in the 19th century was it
obliged to renounce the half of the Azeri homeland located north of
the river Araxes.
This disjuncture largely stems from the overwhelming secularism
brought on by 71 years of Soviet rule (1920-1991) and Azerbaijan's
palpably pro-West, pan-Turkic and anti-Iranian outlook, especially
under former President Abulfaz Elçibey and his Popular Front Party of
Azerbaijan, a factor that prompted Iran to support Christian Armenia
during the Nagorno-Karabakh war.
South of the Araxes, Tehran remains acutely sensitive to potential
Azeri irredentism stoked by the existence of independent Azerbaijan,
despite the fact that its own Azeris - a fifth to a quarter of all
Iranians including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei (who is half-Azeri) -
are generally well integrated.
Baku has for its part accused Iran of supporting radical Shiite
elements, including the now outlawed Islamic Party of Azerbaijan, as
well as the Talysh ethnic minority inhabiting the border areas.
Nationalist rhetoric has also sharpened with calls for the country to
be rechristened `North Azerbaijan' as opposed to what some view as the
`occupied' South.
Both Israel and Iran have repeatedly accused each other of using Azeri
territory as a base for covert operations, and the Azeri authorities
haven't held back from publicly linking a number of locally arrested
individuals with Iranian intelligence.
All this suggests that an Israeli `staging ground' may not be that
farfetched, despite a 2005 Baku-Tehran non-aggression pact and
official insistence - most recently by President Ilham Aliyev during a
cabinet meeting - that Azerbaijan would never allow its territory to
be used against its neighbors.
However, while Azerbaijan is eminently suited to Israeli interests,
the costs of a potential Iranian backlash toward Baku are unbearable
for three key reasons.
http://the-diplomat.com/2012/05/12/israel%E2%80%99s-reluctant-friend/
May 12 2012
Israel's Reluctant Friend
May 12, 2012
Talk of allowing its airstrips to be used in a military strike against
Iran thrust Azerbaijan into the spotlight. It doesn't want to be
there.
A new and perhaps surprising country took center stage recently in the
ongoing row over Iran's nuclear program - Azerbaijan. Citing anonymous
`high-level sources' from U.S. diplomatic and intelligence circles, a
controversial article in Foreign Policy at the end of March suggested
the possibility that Israel might have been proffered the use of
Azerbaijani airstrips for any strikes against Iran's nuclear
facilities.
The article attracted impassioned rebuttals from officials and
observers alike. But the question remains: how did Azerbaijan get
sucked into the controversy over Tehran's nuclear plans in the first
place?
Azerbaijan's relations with Israel developed in earnest 20 years ago,
and have grown significantly in depth and scope ever since. With
bilateral trade currently hovering around $4 billion, Azerbaijan is
Israel's top trading partner among Muslim states, and the second
largest source of Israel's oil after Russia.
Conversely, Israel represents Azerbaijan's second largest oil
customer, and via the Ashkelon-Eilat Trans-Israel Pipeline, a crucial
transit point for Azeri oil flowing to Asia's growing markets. Israeli
companies have also made no secret of their stake in the country's
other key, non-energy sectors, including agriculture and
communications. However, it's the military-defense aspect of bilateral
cooperation that has kept Iran on its toes of late.
Israel began modernizing Azerbaijan's ragtag army after its six year,
undeclared war with Armenia led to the loss of the Nagorno-Karabakh
enclave and seven neighboring districts. On February 26 of this year,
Baku and Tel Aviv inked the latest in a series of arms deals, this
time to the tune of $1.6 billion, on the basis of which Israel
Aerospace Industries would supply Heron and Searcher drones,
anti-aircraft and missile defense systems over the coming months and
perhaps years.
This closeness represents everything that relations between Iran and
Azerbaijan ought to have been right from the start, given both
nations' deep historical ties. Azerbaijan was a Persian satrapy under
the Achaemenid, the Parthian and the Sassanian empires, and the Shiite
Safavids credited for laying the foundations of modern Iran were
mainly ethnic Azeris, a sub-branch of the Turkic peoples. Only after
Iran was twice defeated by the Russians in the 19th century was it
obliged to renounce the half of the Azeri homeland located north of
the river Araxes.
This disjuncture largely stems from the overwhelming secularism
brought on by 71 years of Soviet rule (1920-1991) and Azerbaijan's
palpably pro-West, pan-Turkic and anti-Iranian outlook, especially
under former President Abulfaz Elçibey and his Popular Front Party of
Azerbaijan, a factor that prompted Iran to support Christian Armenia
during the Nagorno-Karabakh war.
South of the Araxes, Tehran remains acutely sensitive to potential
Azeri irredentism stoked by the existence of independent Azerbaijan,
despite the fact that its own Azeris - a fifth to a quarter of all
Iranians including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei (who is half-Azeri) -
are generally well integrated.
Baku has for its part accused Iran of supporting radical Shiite
elements, including the now outlawed Islamic Party of Azerbaijan, as
well as the Talysh ethnic minority inhabiting the border areas.
Nationalist rhetoric has also sharpened with calls for the country to
be rechristened `North Azerbaijan' as opposed to what some view as the
`occupied' South.
Both Israel and Iran have repeatedly accused each other of using Azeri
territory as a base for covert operations, and the Azeri authorities
haven't held back from publicly linking a number of locally arrested
individuals with Iranian intelligence.
All this suggests that an Israeli `staging ground' may not be that
farfetched, despite a 2005 Baku-Tehran non-aggression pact and
official insistence - most recently by President Ilham Aliyev during a
cabinet meeting - that Azerbaijan would never allow its territory to
be used against its neighbors.
However, while Azerbaijan is eminently suited to Israeli interests,
the costs of a potential Iranian backlash toward Baku are unbearable
for three key reasons.
http://the-diplomat.com/2012/05/12/israel%E2%80%99s-reluctant-friend/