Israel’s government led by the Likud party recently decision maden: The recognition of the Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire was strongly criticized by the official structures of Azerbaijan, one of Israel’s close allies. In an official statement, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Caspian Republic called the decision of West Jerusalem a matter of “serious concern”. The department described the recognition as a “distortion of historical facts” and “reducing a political solution to a complex historical problem”, claiming that the given decision made “without sufficient legal and scientific grounds” is “unacceptable”.

“Such actions do not contribute to reconciliation and mutual understanding. On the contrary, they deepen the existing contradictions and undermine efforts to achieve lasting peace and stability in the region,” the document says.

The foreign political department of Azerbaijan called on the government of Israel to review the adopted decision.

It is known that the two countries have close relations. Baku is one of the largest suppliers of oil to Israel, an important supplier of modern weapons on the shores of the Caspian Sea.

In 2025, Azerbaijan tried to reduce tensions between Turkey and Israel regarding the situation in Syria and the Gaza Strip by organizing at least two rounds of technical consultations between the countries’ delegations. These efforts have produced no visible results and appear to have been abandoned for now in Baku.

Baku believes that Israel ignored Azerbaijan’s long-term support during the Gaza war and showed no sensitivity to the conflict with Armenia, an extremely sensitive issue for Azerbaijan. writes Ynet periodical.

According to officials familiar with the relations between the two countries, the Netanyahu government’s decision to recognize the Armenian Genocide has caused a deeper crisis in Israeli-Azerbaijani relations than it may seem publicly. Baku sees the move as crossing a “red line” by Israel, believing that West Jerusalem has not shown the mutual support that Azerbaijan has shown to Israel since the beginning of the war.

Following Heydar Aliyev’s “One nation, two states” formula, Turkey and Azerbaijan consider each other close allies. Under the Shushi Declaration signed in May 2021, the two countries commit to mutual support in the event of a third-party attack on one of them.

Baku experts like to remind how in 2020, during the second Karabakh war, Turkey F-16 fighters moved Ganja, thus sending an unequivocal signal not only to Yerevan, but also to Moscow. During the recent visit of Turkish Justice Minister Gürlek to Baku, a wider range of issues was probably discussed, but the topic of Azerbaijani-Israeli cooperation, which irritates Ankara, is not often raised in the public rhetoric of Azerbaijani-Turkish “unbreakable brotherhood”.

Baku is under considerable pressure from Ankara, but at that time Aliyev understood the importance of cooperation with Israel. thinks former head of the Israeli “Native” secret service, Yaakov Kedmi. Azerbaijan needs cooperation with Israel, while at the same time it does not want to upset its “brotherly” Turkey, so in the end some intermediate option was chosen.

So far, only the Israeli government has spoken about the recognition of the Armenian Genocide, whose decision has yet to be approved by the Knesset.

Dunya Basol, one of the connoisseurs of Israeli political cuisine implies: Baku may try to exert pressure, trying to block the approval of the relevant resolution at the level of the Israeli parliament. “It is surprising that the Knesset of Israel can ignore the sensitivity of Azerbaijan in this matter and consider the alliance between Azerbaijan and Turkey as a normal thing.”

According to official Ankara, Israel’s decision is a convenient way to divert public attention from the International Criminal Court’s issuance of arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a number of other officials for alleged crimes committed in the Gaza Strip. According to Turkey’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, Netanyahu’s regime has “become a problem for all humanity” because of its policies in the Middle East.

It is known that Israel is a party to the ongoing trial at the International Court of Justice of the United Nations, where the claim related to the accusations of genocide is being examined.

Against the background of growing isolation in Europe, Israel is trying to build relations with the Republika Srpska (namely within Bosnia and Herzegovina) and a number of other state entities that have an interest in one way or another in strengthening ties with Israel and its lobbying structures around Capitol Hill and the White House.

Nevertheless, the hopes of receiving rapturous approval from official Yerevan, if there were any at all, were ephemeral (illusory) from the beginning. actively establishing relations with the western neighbor, Nikol Pashinyan’s government has long excluded the issue of recognition of the Armenian Genocide from the number of foreign political priorities. “We do not see the need for any answer or official reaction, because we believe that refusing to include the instrumentalization of the Armenian Genocide topic in the agenda is completely in the state interests of the Republic of Armenia.”

“In general, it was perceived as a belated attempt.” says Richard Kirakosyan, director of the Center for Regional Studies in Yerevan.

Combined with Israel’s military support for neighboring Azerbaijan in the 2020 war, this was far from the positive step one might have hoped for. There is dissatisfaction in Armenia that the Genocide issue has become a weapon during the conflict between the Israeli government and the Turkish leadership.

And? According to Farhad Mamedov, director of the Baku South Caucasus Research Center, Israel–Turkish “case” is the most complicated for his country. The case is unlikely to reach a frontal confrontation, but a mediated confrontation (for example, in Syria) may become a reality.

Alexander Grigoriev

vpoanalytics.com

Translation by Zhanna Avetisyan

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