In recent days, Turkey and Azerbaijan are actively discussing the scenario of expanding the war against Iran, as a result of which not only the energy infrastructures of the Persian Gulf countries can be targeted, but also the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline supplying oil to Israel, which is of critical importance for the regional strategy of Azerbaijan and Turkey.

It is not by chance that these days Turkey is making consistent efforts to ease the US-Iran tension and stop hostilities.

And in Azerbaijan, for example, they falsify official statistics so as not to show at least at that level that they supply about 45% of Israel’s oil. Thus, the State Statistical Committee of Azerbaijan until 2024 always showed Israel as one of the main 5 destinations of Azerbaijani oil exports (about 5-10% of all exports). And in 2025 in the published export data, the line “Israel” is simply missing.

Thanks to Azerbaijan’s statistical “magic stick” (by the way, the same stick is used to inflate the population of Azerbaijan by almost two times), the oil supplied to Israel disappears from the statistics, although in 2022 since then, its volumes, on the contrary, have increased. Oil going to Israel is now registered as oil exported to Turkey, although technically oil going to all countries can be labeled as such, unless they are transported from Baku to Ceyhan, Turkey, and from there to other countries. However, all other countries are listed on a separate line and appear in the statistics, except for Israel.
In response to inquiries, the Azerbaijani authorities say that they are not responsible for where the Azerbaijani oil will go from the Ceyhan port.

This statistical deception may be effective in the information-propaganda domain, but not with the military-political leadership of Iran.

Turkologist Varuzhan Geghamyan

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