The first Muslim country will open embassy in Israel
20 November 2022
The Azerbaijani parliament on Friday approved a proposal to open an embassy in Israel. The historic decision will make Azerbaijan the first Shi’ite Muslim country to open an embassy in the Jewish state, reports The Times of Israel.
Israel has had an embassy in Baku since 1992.
Prime Minister Yair Lapid welcomed the move, saying “Azerbaijan is an important partner of Israel and home to one of the largest Jewish communities in the Muslim world.
“The decision to open an embassy reflects the depth of the relationship between our countries. This move is the result of the Israeli government’s efforts to build strong diplomatic bridges with the Muslim world,” he said.
“The Azeri people… will now be represented for the first time in the State of Israel,” he added.
The Azeri decision reflects its close ties with Israel — particularly in the fields of security and trade — and its increasingly strained ties with Iran.
Earlier this week, Azerbaijan said it arrested five of its nationals for spying for Iran after a rise in tensions between the neighbors. The arrests came a week after Baku and Tehran accused each other of hostile rhetoric.
Iran, home to millions of ethnic Azeris, has long accused its smaller northern neighbor of fueling separatist sentiment on its territory.
Last month, Defense Minister Benny Gantz held an official visit to Azerbaijan, where he met with his Azeri counterpart, Zakir Hasanov, and the country’s President Ilham Aliyev.
The visit focused on security and policy issues, with the aim of fostering defense cooperation between Jerusalem and Baku.
In 2020, the neighboring countries fought a six-week-long war that claimed the lives of more than 6,000 soldiers and resulted in Azerbaijan conquering some of the disputed territories, prior to a Russian-brokered ceasefire.
Israel has major weapons deals with Azerbaijan, though it does not disclose details of the agreements.
In 2016, Aliyev said his country had bought $4.85 billion in defense equipment from the Jewish state, but Israel has never confirmed that figure.
The Azerbaijani decision to open an embassy in Israel comes after close Azerbaijani ally Turkey named an ambassador to Israel earlier this month for the first time in four years, in the latest step towards normalizing relations still clouded by Israel’s deadly 2010 storming of a Turkish aid ship headed for Gaza, writes Alarabiya news.
Azerbaijan shares a border of around 700 kilometers (430 miles) with Israel’s arch foe Iran and has become a major buyer of Israeli weapons systems.
According to a 2021 report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri), Israel has been the top supplier of arms to Azerbaijan in recent years, with sales of more than $740 million topping those of Russia.
The Israeli arms sales drew diplomatic fire from Armenia during its 2020 war with Azerbaijan in which it suffered significant territorial losses.
“The Abraham accords (establishing relations between Israel and some Arab countries) and the recent normalization of ties between Israel and Turkey, make it harder to claim that a Muslim-majority state having relations with Israel is something out of the ordinary,” said Gallia Lindenstrauss, a senior research fellow at Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies. “Second, the clear military victory of Azerbaijan in the second Nagorno-Karabakh War makes it also less dependent on political support from the Arab and Muslim world,” she told Eurasianet.
“From time to time some tried to give rise to an idea that some countries wouldn’t like it if there were an Azerbaijani embassy in Israel,” said in his remarks to Pravda.az Arzu Naghiyev, a member of the Azerbaijan-Israel parliamentary working group in Baku. “The state of Azerbaijan manages its own foreign policy. If Iran opens a consulate in Gafan and says "Armenia is our partner," there is no reason for us to shy away from any country. It never was the case and never will be.”
Naghiyev’s comments came just two days after Iran opened a consulate in Gafan, in southern Armenia near the borders with Iran and Azerbaijan’s Zangilan region, which was among the territories Azerbaijan retook during its 2020 war with Armenia.
Armenia, which Iran is ever more openly supporting in its conflict with Azerbaijan, opened its own embassy in Israel in 2020, making supposed Iranian objections to Azerbaijan doing the same seem unconvincing.
(photo Nicole Laskavi/MOD)
Israel has had an embassy in Baku since 1992.
Prime Minister Yair Lapid welcomed the move, saying “Azerbaijan is an important partner of Israel and home to one of the largest Jewish communities in the Muslim world.
“The decision to open an embassy reflects the depth of the relationship between our countries. This move is the result of the Israeli government’s efforts to build strong diplomatic bridges with the Muslim world,” he said.
“The Azeri people… will now be represented for the first time in the State of Israel,” he added.
The Azeri decision reflects its close ties with Israel — particularly in the fields of security and trade — and its increasingly strained ties with Iran.
Earlier this week, Azerbaijan said it arrested five of its nationals for spying for Iran after a rise in tensions between the neighbors. The arrests came a week after Baku and Tehran accused each other of hostile rhetoric.
Iran, home to millions of ethnic Azeris, has long accused its smaller northern neighbor of fueling separatist sentiment on its territory.
Last month, Defense Minister Benny Gantz held an official visit to Azerbaijan, where he met with his Azeri counterpart, Zakir Hasanov, and the country’s President Ilham Aliyev.
The visit focused on security and policy issues, with the aim of fostering defense cooperation between Jerusalem and Baku.
In 2020, the neighboring countries fought a six-week-long war that claimed the lives of more than 6,000 soldiers and resulted in Azerbaijan conquering some of the disputed territories, prior to a Russian-brokered ceasefire.
Israel has major weapons deals with Azerbaijan, though it does not disclose details of the agreements.
In 2016, Aliyev said his country had bought $4.85 billion in defense equipment from the Jewish state, but Israel has never confirmed that figure.
The Azerbaijani decision to open an embassy in Israel comes after close Azerbaijani ally Turkey named an ambassador to Israel earlier this month for the first time in four years, in the latest step towards normalizing relations still clouded by Israel’s deadly 2010 storming of a Turkish aid ship headed for Gaza, writes Alarabiya news.
Azerbaijan shares a border of around 700 kilometers (430 miles) with Israel’s arch foe Iran and has become a major buyer of Israeli weapons systems.
According to a 2021 report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri), Israel has been the top supplier of arms to Azerbaijan in recent years, with sales of more than $740 million topping those of Russia.
The Israeli arms sales drew diplomatic fire from Armenia during its 2020 war with Azerbaijan in which it suffered significant territorial losses.
“The Abraham accords (establishing relations between Israel and some Arab countries) and the recent normalization of ties between Israel and Turkey, make it harder to claim that a Muslim-majority state having relations with Israel is something out of the ordinary,” said Gallia Lindenstrauss, a senior research fellow at Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies. “Second, the clear military victory of Azerbaijan in the second Nagorno-Karabakh War makes it also less dependent on political support from the Arab and Muslim world,” she told Eurasianet.
“From time to time some tried to give rise to an idea that some countries wouldn’t like it if there were an Azerbaijani embassy in Israel,” said in his remarks to Pravda.az Arzu Naghiyev, a member of the Azerbaijan-Israel parliamentary working group in Baku. “The state of Azerbaijan manages its own foreign policy. If Iran opens a consulate in Gafan and says "Armenia is our partner," there is no reason for us to shy away from any country. It never was the case and never will be.”
Naghiyev’s comments came just two days after Iran opened a consulate in Gafan, in southern Armenia near the borders with Iran and Azerbaijan’s Zangilan region, which was among the territories Azerbaijan retook during its 2020 war with Armenia.
Armenia, which Iran is ever more openly supporting in its conflict with Azerbaijan, opened its own embassy in Israel in 2020, making supposed Iranian objections to Azerbaijan doing the same seem unconvincing.
(photo Nicole Laskavi/MOD)
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