Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen held consultations in Baku with senior Azerbaijani officials, before heading to Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan, to inaugurate his country’s embassy there, in a move that would anger Tehran.
Cohen met on Wednesday with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev at the presidential palace, a month after the opening of the country’s embassy in Tel Aviv.
Aliyev expressed his satisfaction with the course of relations between the two countries, and said: “The opening of the Azerbaijani embassy in Israel is an indication of the high level of our relations.”
“The ties between our two countries are based on friendship, mutual trust, respect and support,” the Azeri Trend News Agency reported.
Israeli iNews 24 stated that Aliyev and Cohen discussed common strategic challenges and the means to combat hostile operations and expand bilateral cooperation.
“Israel and Azerbaijan are strengthening their political and security alliance,” Cohen said, adding: “We talked about our common strategic regional challenges, on top of which are regional security and the fight against terrorism.”
The Israeli foreign minister is accompanied by a delegation of 30 officials in the fields of economy, homeland security, cyber security and water. On Wednesday, he headed to the Turkmen capital to open his country’s embassy - the closest Israeli diplomatic headquarters to the borders of Iran.
Ashgabat is 25 km from the Turkmen-Iranian borders, which stretch along one thousand kilometers. Cohen is the first Israeli minister to visit Ashgabat over the past 30 years.
Relations between Baku and Tehran deteriorated last month, after the opening of the Azeri embassy in Israel. Baku expelled four Iranian diplomats in March for “provocative actions”. For its part, Tehran severely criticized Baku for its rapprochement with Israel, and said that it sees this relationship as “anti-Iranian”.
Last week, the Iranian foreign minister made two contacts with his Azeri counterpart, Jeyhun Bayramov, in an attempt to defuse the crisis between the two countries.
“In these frank and transparent talks… current problems, misunderstandings and their solutions were discussed,” the Iranian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
It added that the two parties “stressed the importance of good neighborliness and mutual respect for each other’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
