Baku’s Distance: How Israeli and Turkish Ties Blocked Iran’s Reach

Two weeks before the outbreak of war between Israel and Iran in mid-June, President Masoud Pezeshkian paid a visit to the Republic of Azerbaijan. There, he met his counterpart, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, at a summit of the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO), a regional body that includes Iran, Turkey, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

On the sidelines of the summit, the two leaders sought to repair their countries’ fraught ties after an attack on Azerbaijan’s embassy in Tehran two years earlier. The summit saw seven new bilateral cooperation agreements to expand trade and transportation and support joint projects in the health sector. Pezeshkian raised the possibility of a new railway extending from Pakistan—via Iran and Azerbaijan—to Turkey, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia. He also stressed the importance of the Aras corridor project to help Azeris travel to Iran by land and rail, and a similar project connecting Baku to Tabriz and Tehran through the Aghband-Kalaleh Border Bridge, designed to advance important South-North corridors and improve trade relations.

In a deeply symbolic gesture, Pezeshkian, who is himself an ethnic Azeri, recited lines from the Azerbaijani-Iranian poet Mohammad-Hossein Shahriar in Turkish. He reassured his audience, as well as the concerned Iranian diaspora community in Azerbaijan, that Iranian-Azeri ties were growing healthier. Pezeshkian added that Baku reminded him of his hometown and the ethnically Azeri-populated cities of Tabriz and Erdebil in Iranian Azerbaijan. It was an important first step toward rekindling a relationship at or near its nadir.

Geopolitics Complicates Iran-Azerbaijan Relations

Despite expert-level meetings, as well as consultations between Pezeshkian and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamaneito signal Tehran’s desire for stronger ties with Azerbaijan, the relationship remains tense. In June, when Israeli jets were striking Tehran, Baku conspicuously refused to condemn the attacks. Rather, it joined other ECO members to issue a dispassionate joint statement calling for peace but avoiding blaming either side. For all of Iran’s efforts, Baku has essentially re-aligned its regional partnerships in a manner that appears to aim to contain the Islamic Republic, rather than find common ground.

Worsening ties between the neighboring states date back to border tensions between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh region in 2021. Tehran’s alliance with Yerevan reportedly involved the delivery of military arms, and directly challenged Azeri sovereignty over the disputed territory. Moreover, Iran never directly condemned Armenian incursions into Azeri territory. These actions led to the systemic degradation of Iran’s ability to influence events to its north when Azerbaijan’s 2023 offensive seized control of Nagorno-Karabagh.

At the same time, Baku has long maintained friendly relations with Israel, Iran’s archenemy in the Middle East. Tel Aviv opened its embassy in Azerbaijan in March 2023. The move boosted Israeli weapons sales to Azerbaijan, posing a direct threat to Iran. Although officials in Baku said their country’s ties with Israel were in line with a desire to pursue a more multilateral foreign policy, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s was set to visit Baku only five days after Pezeshkian attended the ECO Summit—although the visit was postponed, it underscored the strategic nature of their partnership. Tehran has pursued military cooperation with Baku, including a two-day naval drill in the Caspian Sea back in November 2024, but this is hardly comparable to the high level of Azeri-Israeli military and security ties. Hardline Iranian leaders have long accused Azerbaijan and Israel of forming a united front against Tehran, and Iranian media insinuated during the 12-day war that Baku had allowed Israel to conduct drone attacks using Azeri territory. President Aliyev publicly rejected that claim as hostile propaganda, as did Azeri media.

Of course, Israel is not the only regional state with interests in Azerbaijan. A rapid expansion of Israeli influence in Azerbaijan could sideline Turkish interest in remaining the primary power player in the South Caucasus, as well as the shared ethnic ties that support the Turkish-Azerbaijan relationship. Thus, Ankara may have encouraged Azerbaijan to maintain cordial ties with Iran, but to avoid any close ties with Tehran that could supplant the Azeri-Turkish connection. However, Azerbaijan’s actions in recent months have made it clear that it prefers to engage with Ankara and Tel Aviv—not Tehran. Baku has held diplomatic talks to repair the Ankara-Tel Aviv relationship, and is active in Syria, where both of those countries retain military interests after the fall of Iran ally Bashar al-Assad.

In an indication of how Iranian elites view Azerbaijan’s closeness with Turkey, the Islamic Republic’s propaganda machine has targeted both with abandon. On January 8, 2025, an Iranian sermon reader launched a verbal attack against presidents Erdogan and Aliyev by referring to a historic war between the Persian Shah Esmail Safavi and the Ottoman Sultan Salim in 1514, which the Turks decisively won. The reader promised that descendants of the Safavi rulers in Iran would once again hoist Persian flags in Baku and other cities that once belonged to the Persian empire. This is hardly the language one uses when one is seeking rapprochement—and runs counter to Pezeshkian’s far more diplomatic message during his meeting with Aliyev.

What is the way ahead? Iran and Azerbaijan have much to gain from a productive relationship. The two countries enjoy centuries of ties, religious overlap, and a critical geographical position in the Caucasus between Europe and Asia. Yet the current enmity between Tehran and Baku is far from new; the two nations have a long history of hostility, as the sermon alludes to. Perhaps Iran wants better relations with Azerbaijan, if only for expediency’s sake. But Azerbaijan, which has dramatically expanded its influence in recent years thanks to its partnerships with Turkey, Israel, and the United States, has little reason to improve them.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of Gulf International Forum.