Amid the escalating Israeli–Iranian confrontation, Azerbaijan has underscored its commitment to neutrality and warned against any use of its territory for third-party attacks.
Azerbaijan and Israel have maintained strategic relations for decades, grounded in shared interests and extensive military cooperation. Baku is a key supplier of oil to Israel, while it acquires advanced Israeli weaponry—drones, air-defence systems and cutting-edge security technologies. Relations deepened after the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war, when Israeli arms played a decisive role in Azerbaijan’s battlefield success. Both countries also share concerns over Iran’s regional ambitions and its nuclear programme.
A delicate geopolitical position
With the conflict between Israel and Iran spilling over into direct strikes and counter-strikes, Azerbaijan now finds itself in a particularly delicate geopolitical position. While its alliance with Israel runs deep, it shares a long border with Iran and hosts a significant ethnic Azerbaijani population within Iran’s borders.
Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov told his Iranian counterpart Abbas Araghchi in a telephone call that “Azerbaijan will never allow its territory to be used for attacks against friendly states, including Iran.” He stressed that Baku “under no circumstances will permit its airspace or soil to serve as a launchpad for operations against Iran or any other country.”
Political analyst Farhad Mammadov, head of the Center for Studies of the South Caucasus (CSSC), noted that Tehran is unlikely to launch a sustained response against Azerbaijan. “Iran will examine whether any foreign airspace facilitated Israeli operations against it—and Azerbaijan is not implicated,” he said, adding that “there is no basis for Iranian action against Azerbaijan, which hosts neither Israeli nor American military infrastructure.”