A welcome new stage in Azerbaijani-Israeli ties
ALEXANDER MURINSON
THE JERUSALEM POST
Jun. 1, 2009
Israel has actively sought to establish friendly relations with
Azerbaijan and other Muslim states in the post-Soviet space. Relations
between Israel, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan serve as a model for
cooperation between the Jewish state and Muslim nations. As a result of
the meeting between Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Israel’s new
Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman in Prague on May 6, an agreement
about a state visit by President Shimon Peres to Baku has been reached.
Peres is scheduled to visit Azerbaijan near the end of June as a part
of his tour of the Muslim republics of the CIS. The visit to Baku will
take place "at the highest level and with all honors."
In view of increasing tensions between the Iranian mullahs’ regime,
which seeks to build nuclear weapons and threaten the Gulf region, and
Israel, the invitation for Peres to visit secular Muslim Azerbaijan,
Iran’s northern neighbor, reaffirms the strategic relationship between
the two countries. Diplomatic relations between the countries were
established shortly after Azerbaijan’s independence in 1992. Premier
Binyamin Netanyahu paid a working visit in 1997 on his flight from
China.
This diplomatic breakthrough was achieved by Lieberman, who emigrated
from the former Soviet Republic of Moldova. Since his days as the
minister of strategic affairs (2006-2008), he has pursued a policy of
deepening relations with the newly independent states of Eastern
Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia. Lieberman paid special attention
to the Republic of Azerbaijan, strategically located on the western
shore of the Caspian Sea. He paid an official visit to Azerbaijan in
August 2007. During their meeting in Prague, Aliyev and Lieberman
discussed the development of Azerbaijani-Israeli relations. Lieberman
mentioned that he intends to visit Baku in the near future.
THE CRITICAL AREA of cooperation between the two countries is energy
securi
ael’s oil. Due
to the high proportion of petrochemicals in bilateral trade, the value
of imports from Azerbaijan reached $3.5 billion in 2008. There are also
plans to supply Azerbaijani natural gas via Turkey to Haifa. However,
there is renewed interest on both sides in expanding bilateral
cooperation into new areas such as agriculture, medical research and
hi-tech. As part of this effort, a series of events have been organized
with the participation of Ambassador to Azerbaijan Arthur Lenk, who has
represented the Jewish state in Baku since 2005 and will leave his post
in July.
In May 2008, the Israel-Azerbaijani business forum took place in Baku,
with the Israeli side represented by Agriculture Minister Shalom
Simhon. Tel Aviv hosted a forum with representatives of more than 20
companies from Azerbaijan and officials of the Ministry of Economic
Development on May 18. The key part of the forum was the signing of an
agreement on cooperation between the Israel Export Institute and the
Azerbaijan Fund for Export and Investments Encouragement (AzPromo).
This agreement institutionalizes mutual trade and investment. The
International Agricultural Exhibition Agritech 2009 taking place in
Israel will also see the Azerbaijani delegation led by Ilham Guliyev,
deputy minister of agriculture.
In late September 2008, Azerbaijan agreed to buy military hardware from
Israel. On September 26, Haaretz reported that Azerbaijan will purchase
Israeli weapons, including ammunition, mortars and military radio
equipment worth hundreds of millions of dollars. This is the first
public acknowledgment of the growing strategic relationship between the
two countries, even though the relationship goes back to the first
years of Azerbaijani independence. This political move demonstrates
Azerbaijani commitment to its Western orientation and independence from
Moscow and Teheran.
Israel sought to establish close relations with these countries,
because the developments in this region profoundly affect the stability
o d the size of the
predominantly Muslim population of Central Asia and Azerbaijan. The
Caspian region can become a fertile ground for the spread of Islamic
radicalism and nuclear proliferation. These threats also unite Israel
with the elites and secular middle class in these nations. The natural
riches of the region make cooperation with these nations even more
attractive.
The Obama administration would be wise to see Israel under Netanyahu as
an asset and interlocutor in the American strategy toward Eurasia in
general and the South Caucasus in particular. Israel’s influence among
the ex-Soviet republics and the Russian Federation is bound to increase
under Lieberman, who has built a broad network of formal and informal
relations with the elites of these republics during his tenure as
minister of strategic affairs.
News reports about the coming visit of Peres to Azerbaijan have already
caused consternation among the Iranian military. The Azerbaijani media
reported on May 21 that the Iranian Chief of Staff Hasan Firudabadi
made public threats directed at Azerbaijan, saying that a visit by the
Israeli president would be an "incorrect step." He added: "The Shimon
Peres visit does not seem like a friendly step in Azerbaijani relations
with Iran."
The writer is an independent researcher; his book Turkey’s Entente with
Israel and Azerbaijan: State Identity and Security in the Middle East
and Caucasus will be published by Routledge in September 2009.