Israeli Arms Quietly Helped Azerbaijan Retake Nagorno-Karabakh, to the Dismay of Region's Armenians

Israel has quietly helped fuel Azerbaijan’s campaign to recapture Nagorno-Karabakh, supplying powerful weapons to Azerbaijan ahead of its lightening offensive last month that brought the ethnic Armenian enclave back under its control, officials and experts say.
Just weeks before Azerbaijan launched its 24-hour assault on Sept. 19, Azerbaijani military cargo planes repeatedly flew between a southern Israeli airbase and an airfield near Nagorno-Karabakh, according to flight tracking data and Armenian diplomats, even as Western governments were urging peace talks.
The flights rattled Armenian officials in Yerevan, long wary of the strategic alliance between Israel and Azerbaijan, and shined a light on Israel’s national interests in the restive region south of the Caucasus Mountains, The Associated Press said.
“For us, it is a major concern that Israeli weapons have been firing at our people,” Arman Akopian, Armenia’s ambassador to Israel, told The Associated Press. In a flurry of diplomatic exchanges, Akopian said he expressed alarm to Israeli politicians and lawmakers in recent weeks over Israeli weapons shipments.
“I don’t see why Israel should not be in the position to express at least some concern about the fate of people being expelled from their homeland," he told AP.
Azerbaijan's September blitz involving heavy artillery, rocket launchers and drones — largely supplied by Israel and Turkey, according to experts — forced Armenian separatist authorities to lay down their weapons and sit down for talks on the future of the separatist region.
The Azerbaijani offensive killed over 200 Armenians in the enclave, the vast majority of them fighters, and some 200 Azerbaijani troops, according to officials.
There are ramifications beyond the volatile enclave of 4,400 square kilometers (1,700 square miles). The fighting prompted over 100,000 people — more than 80% of the enclave's ethnic Armenian residents — to flee in the last two weeks. Azerbaijan has pledged to respect the rights of ethnic Armenians. Armenia calls the exodus a form of ethnic cleansing.
Israel’s foreign and defense ministries declined to comment on the use of Israeli weapons in Nagorno-Karabakh or on Armenian concerns about its military partnership with Azerbaijan. In July, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant visited Baku, the Azerbaijan capital, where he praised the countries' military cooperation and joint “fight against terrorism.”
Israel has a big stake in Azerbaijan, which serves as a critical source of oil and is a staunch ally against Israel’s archenemy Iran. It is also a lucrative customer of sophisticated arms.
“There’s no doubt about our position in support of Azerbaijan’s defense,” said Israel's former ambassador to Azerbaijan, Arkady Milman. “We have a strategic partnership to contain Iran.”
Although once resource-poor Israel now has plenty of natural gas off its Mediterranean coast, Azerbaijan still supplies at least 40% of Israel's oil needs, keeping cars and trucks on its roads. Israel turned to Baku’s offshore deposits in the late 1990s, creating an oil pipeline through the Turkish transport hub of Ceyan that isolated Iran, which at the time capitalized on oil flowing through its pipelines from Kazakhstan to world markets.
Azerbaijan has long been suspicious of Iran, its fellow Shiite Muslim neighbor on the Caspian Sea, and chafed at its support for Armenia, which is Orthodox Christian. Iran has accused Azerbaijan of hosting a base for Israeli intelligence operations against it — a claim that Azerbaijan and Israel deny.
“It's clear to us that Israel has an interest in keeping a military presence in Azerbaijan, using its territory to observe Iran,” Armenian diplomat Tigran Balayan said.
Few have benefited more from the two countries' close relations than Israeli military contractors. Experts estimate Israel supplied Azerbaijan with nearly 70% of its arsenal between 2016 and 2020 — giving Azerbaijan an edge against Armenia and boosting Israel’s large defense industry.
“Israeli arms have played a very significant role in allowing the Azerbaijani army to reach its objectives,” said Pieter Wezeman, senior researcher at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, which tracks arms sales.
Israeli long-range missiles and exploding drones known as loitering munitions have made up for Azerbaijan’s small air force, Wezeman said, even at times striking deep within Armenia itself. Meanwhile, Israeli Barak-8 surface-to-air missiles have protected Azerbaijan’s airspace in shooting down missiles and drones, he added.
Just ahead of last month's offensive, the Azerbaijani defense ministry announced the army conducted a missile test of Barak-8. Its developer, Israel Aerospace Industries, declined to comment on Azerbaijan's use of its air defense system and combat drones.
But Azerbaijan has raved about the success of Israeli drones in slicing through the Armenian defenses and tipping the balance in the bloody six-week war in 2020.
Its defense minister in 2016 called a combat drone manufactured by Israel’s Aeronautics Group “a nightmare for the Armenian army," which backed the region's separatists during Azerbaijan’s conflict with Nagorno-Karabakh that year.
President Ilham Aliyev in 2021 — a year of deadly Azerbaijan-Armenian border clashes — was captured on camera smiling as he stroked the small Israeli suicide drone “Harop” during an arms showcase.
Israel has deployed similar suicide drones during deadly army raids against Palestinian militants in the occupied West Bank.
“We’re glad for this cooperation, it was quite supportive and quite beneficial for defense,” Azerbaijani’s ambassador to Israel, Mukhtar Mammadov told the AP, speaking generally about Israel's support for the Azerbaijani military. “We’re not hiding it.”
At a crucial moment in early September — as diplomats scrambled to avert an escalation — flight tracking data shows that Azerbaijani cargo planes began to stream into Ovda, a military base in southern Israel with a 3,000-meter-long airstrip, known as the only airport in Israel that handles the export of explosives.
The AP identified at least six flights operated by Azerbaijan's Silk Way Airlines landing at Ovda airport between Sept. 1 and Sept. 17 from Baku, according to aviation-tracking website FlightRadar24.com. Azerbaijan launched its offensive two days later.
During those six days, the Russian-made Ilyushin Il-76 military transport lingered on Ovda's tarmac for several hours before departing for either Baku or Ganja, the country’s second-largest city, just north of Nagorno-Karabakh.
In March, an investigation by the Haaretz newspaper said it had counted 92 Azerbaijani military cargo flights to Ovda airport from 2016-2020. Sudden surges of flights coincided with upticks of fighting in Nagorno-Karabkh, it found.
“During the 2020 war, we saw flights every other day and now, again, we see this intensity of flights leading up to the current conflict,” said Akopian, the Armenian ambassador. “It is clear to us what’s happening.”
Israel's defense ministry declined to comment on the flights. The Azerbaijani ambassador, Mammadov, said he was aware of the reports but declined to comment.
The decision to support an autocratic government against an ethnic and religious minority has fueled a debate in Israel about the country's permissive arms export policies. Of the top 10 arms manufacturers globally, only Israel and Russia lack legal restrictions on weapons exports based on human rights concerns.
“If anyone can identify with (Nagorno-Karabakh) Armenians' continuing fear of ethnic cleansing it is the Jewish people," said Avidan Freedman, founder of the Israeli advocacy group Yanshoof, which seeks to stop Israeli arm sales to human rights violators. “We're not interested in becoming accomplices."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that Israel would do "everything" to stop Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon after Iran's top diplomat warned it could end its ban on developing one if Western sanctions are reimposed.

The renewed war of words between the Middle East foes came as Iran prepares to hold key nuclear talks with European governments on Friday which have been overshadowed by their joining with Washington to have Tehran censured by the UN atomic watchdog.

"I will do everything to prevent it from becoming a nuclear (power), I will use all the resources that can be used," Netanyahu told Israeli broadcaster Channel 14 in an interview.
Israel is the region's sole, if undeclared, nuclear-armed state. It has long made preventing any rival from matching it its top defense priority.
Netanyahu said Tuesday that the ceasefire that went into effect in Lebanon the following day would allow Israel to focus on Iran. He did not elaborate on what action he envisaged.

Iran launched two missile barrages at Israel over the past year in retaliation for the killing of leaders from Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as an Iranian general.

Israel responded both times with limited attacks on Iran, most recently bombing several military sites on October 26.

Last week's chiding at the International Atomic Energy Agency prompted a defiant response from Tehran, but its officials have since signalled willingness to engage with others ahead of the return of US president-elect Donald Trump, whose last administration pursued a policy of "maximum pressure" against Iran.

- Current doctrine 'insufficient' -

Iran insists on its right to nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, but according to the IAEA, it is the only non-nuclear-weapon state enriching uranium to 60 percent.

In an interview with The Guardian newspaper, published on the eve of Iran's talks with Britain, France and Germany, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi warned that frustration in Tehran over unmet commitments, such as lifting sanctions, was fuelling debate over whether the country should alter its nuclear policy.

"We have no intention to go further than 60 percent for the time being, and this is our determination right now," he told the British daily.

But, he added, "there is this debate going on in Iran, and mostly among the elites... whether we should change our nuclear doctrine" as so far it has proven to be "insufficient in practice".

A 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and major powers aimed to give Iran relief from crippling Western sanctions in exchange for limiting its nuclear program to prevent it from developing a weapons capability.

Tehran has consistently denied any such ambition. Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final authority in Iran's decision-making, has issued a religious decree, or fatwa, prohibiting atomic weapons.

Tehran's willingness to sit down with the three European governments so soon after the censure comes just weeks before Trump is set to return to the White House.

During his first term, Trump focused on reimposing heavy sanctions on Iran following his administration's unilateral withdrawal from the 2015 deal three years after it was agreed.

In retaliation for the US withdrawal, Tehran reduced its compliance with the deal, raising its uranium enrichment levels to 60 percent -- closer to the 90 percent required for a nuclear bomb.

- 'Frank exchange' -

Under the 2015 accord -- which will expire in October 2025 -- Iran's enrichment was capped at 3.67 percent.

Iranian diplomat Majid Takht-Ravanchi, who serves as the political deputy to Araghchi, is scheduled to represent Iran in Friday's talks.

On Thursday he and deputy foreign minister for legal and international affairs Kazem Gharibabadi met with Enrique Mora, deputy secretary general of the European Union's foreign affairs arm.

Mora said on X that they held a "frank exchange... on Iran's military support to Russia that has to stop, the nuclear issue that needs a diplomatic solution, regional tensions (important to avoid further escalation from all sides) and human rights".

Last week, the 35-nation board of governors of the IAEA adopted a resolution proposed by Britain, France, Germany and the United States condemning Iran for its lack of cooperation on nuclear issues.

Iran described the move as "politically motivated" and in response announced the launch of "new advanced centrifuges" designed to increase its stockpile of enriched uranium.

For Tehran, the goal of the talks on Friday is to avoid a "double disaster" scenario, in which it would face renewed pressures from both Trump and European governments, according to political analyst Mostafa Shirmohammadi.

He noted that Iran's support among European governments had been eroded by allegations it offered military assistance for Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Iran has denied these accusations and hopes to mend relations with Europe, while also maintaining a firm stance.

Israeli Arms Quietly Helped Azerbaijan Retake Nagorno-Karabakh, to the Dismay of Region's Armenians