The already volatile Caucasus region has emerged, casting a harsh spotlight on Azerbaijan’s deepening security ties with Israel. At the heart of this diplomatic storm is Iran’s explosive allegation that Israeli fighter jets used Azerbaijani airspace — specifically, the strategically vital Caspian Sea corridor — to carry out devastating precision airstrikes on Iranian territory during a tense 12-day aerial campaign.
While Israel has neither confirmed nor denied the operations, Iranian officials have insisted that the logistical complexity of the strikes — which targeted infrastructure in Tehran, Karaj, and military assets in Isfahan and Kermanshah — could not have been possible without regional facilitation. In increasingly direct language, they point the finger at Baku.
According to senior Iranian security officials, the air raids on Iran’s strategic infrastructure bear telltale signs of a highly coordinated operation. Tehran’s own preliminary assessments suggest that the majority of munitions were delivered via flight vectors over the Caspian Sea — bypassing traditional threat corridors to avoid the heavily fortified western and southern perimeters of Iran.
With Iranian air defences reportedly neutralized in key provinces such as Kermanshah and Isfahan using precision standoff munitions launched from Iraqi airspace, Tehran’s intelligence services believe only a regional partner with proximity and technical infrastructure could have enabled such penetrative access.
“Neither Armenia, Turkmenistan, nor Russia — our strategic allies — would allow hostile powers to use their airspace to attack Iran,” stated a senior commander in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), speaking on condition of anonymity. “This leaves Azerbaijan as the most likely facilitator, whether by design or negligence.”
Iran’s newly elected President Masoud Pezeshkian has wasted no time pressing his Azerbaijani counterpart, President Ilham Aliyev, for clarity. In a tense and reportedly frank phone conversation, Pezeshkian demanded a “categorical and transparent” explanation from Baku, as well as a formal investigation into whether Israeli aircraft and drones had staged operations from within Azerbaijani territory or air corridors.
Meanwhile, Mehdi Sobhani, Iran’s ambassador to Armenia, sparked a diplomatic uproar by publicly voicing Tehran’s suspicions.
“We have received information that a small number of drones flew into Iranian territory from the territory of neighbouring countries,” Sobhani said in Yerevan. “It is possible that our enemy, Israel, made use of the territory of our neighboring state. Azerbaijan has assured us that it will not allow its territory to be used against Iran — but we all know Israel does not follow any rules.”
His comments, broadcast by several regional outlets, led to a swift and stinging response from Baku.
Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry was quick to reject the allegations as “baseless,” accusing Ambassador Sobhani of stoking regional tensions with “deliberate provocations.”
“Azerbaijan categorically refutes allegations that its airspace or territory was used by any state to conduct military operations against Iran or any other country,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Aykhan Hajizada in a press briefing in Baku. “Such claims lack any credible evidence.”
Hajizada further took aim at what he described as the ambassador’s “pro-Armenian stance,” implying that Iran’s diplomatic posture in the Caucasus is increasingly aligned with Armenia, Azerbaijan’s long-standing adversary.
“We expect Iran to take necessary steps regarding the opinions voiced by the ambassador, who regularly demonstrates his pro-Armenian position, rather than represent his country.”
What has added fuel to Tehran’s suspicions is the enduring and strategic partnership between Israel and Azerbaijan — one that spans military, intelligence, and energy domains.
Since the early 1990s, Baku and Tel Aviv have nurtured a mutually beneficial alliance. For Israel, Azerbaijan provides a vital source of crude oil, with more than 60% of Israel’s energy imports arriving via pipelines from Baku and Kazakhstan. Analysts estimate the annual value of this flow at over $1.5 billion USD.
In return, Azerbaijan has become a major customer of Israeli weaponry. Between 2016 and 2021, nearly 69% of Azerbaijan’s arms imports were sourced from Israeli defence contractors — a figure valued at more than $5 billion USD over five years.
More alarming for Tehran is the possibility that Azerbaijan now serves not just as an arms buyer, but as a forward operational hub for Israeli intelligence.
Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that the Mossad has long maintained a presence inside Azerbaijan, using it as a base to gather intelligence on Iranian nuclear and military assets. The same reports suggest that during the 2018 operation in which Mossad agents stole Iran’s nuclear archive, the documents were exfiltrated to Israel through Azerbaijani territory.
There are also persistent, though unconfirmed, reports that Baku has upgraded airfields in the north to accommodate Israeli aircraft — a preparation that some analysts see as a contingency for preemptive strikes on Iranian nuclear sites, should Israel deem such action necessary.
The weaponry flowing into Azerbaijan from Israel has already reshaped the military calculus of the South Caucasus. During the 2020 and 2023 Nagorno-Karabakh wars, Israeli drones and missile systems played a decisive role in Azerbaijan’s battlefield superiority.
Loitering Munitions: The Harop drone, dubbed the “kamikaze UAV,” was instrumental in targeting Armenian radar installations and command centers with lethal accuracy.
ISR Platforms: UAVs like the Hermes 450, Searcher, and Orbiter dramatically expanded Azerbaijan’s real-time reconnaissance capabilities.
Air Defence: The Barak-8/MX systems provided by Israel offer multilayered protection against ballistic and cruise missiles, boosting Baku’s ability to counter not only regional threats but long-range Iranian munitions.
Rocket Artillery: Systems like LAR-160 and PULS have extended Azerbaijan’s strike range, allowing precise attacks deep into enemy territory.
The deeper concern in Tehran is not simply about overflights or hardware — it’s about encirclement. As Iran’s influence erodes in Iraq, Syria, and even parts of Lebanon under the weight of U.S.-Israeli-Arab cooperation, Tehran sees the northern front as a dangerous pressure point.
The presence of Israeli technology, advisers, and possibly aircraft within striking range of Iranian nuclear and military facilities has forced Iran’s military planners to reassess their defence posture.
“Israel doesn’t need to bomb Natanz from Tel Aviv,” said an Iranian security official. “They can do it from the north, silently, effectively, with plausible deniability. This is the nightmare scenario we’ve tried to prevent for over a decade.”
Moscow has so far remained neutral, offering no public comment on Iran’s accusations. However, Russia remains wary of growing Israeli influence in the Caspian basin, which it regards as a strategic buffer zone.
Armenia, which maintains strong ties with Iran and a deep-seated rivalry with Azerbaijan, has amplified Tehran’s concerns. Yerevan’s government has expressed “solidarity with Iran’s demand for a transparent investigation,” according to sources in its foreign ministry.
Meanwhile, Turkmenistan — another Caspian neighbor — has remained characteristically silent, adhering to its longstanding policy of neutrality.
While the precise truth behind the alleged Israeli raids remains murky, the fallout has already reshaped diplomatic alignments. Iran’s demand for an investigation may fall on deaf ears in Baku, but the strategic implications cannot be ignored.
If Azerbaijan is indeed becoming a launchpad for Israeli military or intelligence operations against Iran, it marks a radical transformation in the South Caucasus’ role in regional security — from a frozen conflict zone to a frontline of the shadow war between Tehran and Tel Aviv.
This also complicates the international calculus. NATO member Turkey remains a staunch ally of Azerbaijan and has close ties with Israel. How Ankara would respond to an Iranian retaliation remains unclear. Meanwhile, Western capitals, especially Washington and Brussels, will watch warily, concerned that escalation could spill over into broader conflict or energy disruption in the Caspian corridor.
The Iran-Azerbaijan-Israel triangle is more than a diplomatic dust-up. It encapsulates the evolving nature of modern warfare: precision strikes, covert alliances, drone warfare, and intelligence corridors replacing conventional battle lines.
As Tehran grapples with the implications of a possible Israeli breach of its airspace — and as Baku fiercely denies any complicity — the fragile equilibrium of the Caspian region hangs in the balance.
Whether this incident proves to be a turning point or a passing crisis will depend on what happens next: Will Iran retaliate? Will Baku conduct the investigation Tehran demands? And most importantly — will Israel strike again?
