Azerbaijan To Become A Gate For New Turkish-Israeli Cooperation

Source: https://southfront.org/azerbaijan-to-become-a-gate-for-new-turkish-israeli-cooperation/

Published: April 27, 2021

On April 25th, Azerbaijani presidential aide Hikmet Hajiyev claimed that Baku was ready to host a trilateral summit with Ankara and Tel Aviv, underlining that Israel and Turkey share similar interests.

“Turkey is a sister country of Azerbaijan and Israel is our strategic partner. We want our friends to be friends with each other. If the sides agree to such an initiative, then Azerbaijan will always welcome them. We believe that cooperation between them also serves these interests. Azerbaijan does everything it can to improve this relationship.” Hajiyev told Israel Hayom.

Hikmet Hajiyev claimed that Azerbaijan was ready to become a mediator between Turkey and Israel, if the sides agree.

The recent decision of the US President Joe Biden to recognize the Armenian Genocide has become one of the numerous reasons for Azerbaijan to take such a role. The aide to the President of Azerbaijan also noted that Biden made a historical mistake. This decision, in his opinion, is nothing more than the manipulation of historical facts for political purposes, and it changes nothing.

“In the glorious history of Turkey, there were no such actions. Rather than discussing the historical lie of a century ago, it is better to pay attention to the Khojaly genocide, which was perpetrated by Armenia in Karabakh, about which the US Congress is always silent,” Hajiyev said.

Azerbaijan has recently won in a military conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh. Its victory was assured by numerous factors, including military support from Turkey, as well as from Israel.

During the military escalation in Nagorno-Karabakh, Ankara has provided significant diplomatic and military support to Baku. There were important military supplies of Turkish weapons, and the Turkish General Staff took part in planning and conducting of military operations. Turkish military equipment and soldiers, who remained on the territory of Azerbaijan after the joint exercises in the summer of 2020, took part in the military actions in Nagorno-Karabakh.

At the same time, Israel, without participating in hostilities, has supplied several military cargoes to Azerbaijan during the recent war. The deliveries were reportedly carried out through Turkish airspace. The UAVs of Israeli AIA and Elbit were also used during the conflict. As a result, the Israeli companies was reportedly expecting to sign multi-million contracts with Azerbaijan. After its victory, Baku may offer Israel to take part in the infrastructure projects in the Nagorno-Karabakh region. This may be of particular interest to Tel Aviv, given that some of these territories are located on the Iranian border.

On the other hand, despite the Turkish support to Palestinians, Ankara and Tel Aviv have already renewed a clandestine cooperation, and Baku is probably going to openly unfreeze the political dialogue between the parties. There were numerous mutual signals of readiness for this step.

The mutual cooperation in a number of sectors between Israel and Turkey may boost their economies. Turkey and Israel do not have the resources necessary for the equal development of all segments of the economy, as in the United States, Germany or China. The both countries develop some separate segments of industrial and high-tech sectors. One of the most relevant spheres of their cooperation may be, for example, the production of UAVs. Since Turkey is specialized in attack drones, Israel’s main competitive advantage is reconnaissance advanced UAVs. The cooperation is possible in the following format: Israel provides high technologies, while Turkey allocates relatively cheap industrial facilities. Similar interactions are also possible in the production of ICV/ACVs, MRAPs, even MBTs, and in numerous other spheres. Turkey and Israel have all chances to be complementary to each other in many areas of their economies, up to the banking or energy sector.

In this regard, Azerbaijan, which the sides supported to varying degrees during the war, can become a natural bridge for rapprochement between its strategic ally and strategic partner. This is the way, the new regional coalition force is strengthening.

Tags: Date-2021-04-27, Israhel, Azerbaijan, Turkey, ArtsakhWar-2020

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