Israel becomes Azerbaijan’s leading oil customer with $300 million imported in January
As Azerbaijan addresses its own geopolitical conflict with Armenia, ties with Israel continue to improve – despite international pressure on both countries.
By MAARIV ONLINE Azerbaijan's president Ilham Aliyev met with Israeli counterpart Isaac Herzog at the Munich Security Conference in February 2024.(photo credit: Office of the President of Azerbaijan)
Azerbaijan published its oil export data for January 2024 during the Security Conference in Munich on Feb 16-18 – where Israeli President Isaac Herzog met with the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev.
The data shows that Israel ranks first in the table of countries that export oil from the friendly Shiite country, and the export to Israel was 523.5 thousand tons with a value of about 297 million dollars – a figure significantly higher than other countries importing oil from Azerbaijan, such as Thailand, Italy, and others.
Aliyev’s office in Azerbaijan’s capital of Baku issued a statement regarding the meeting between him and his Israeli counterpart, in which the two discussed various fields of cooperation between Azerbaijan and Israel – such as commercial, economic, cultural, and humanitarian ties.
Protesters gather near the government building, after Azerbaijan launched a military operation in the region of Nagorno-Karabakh, in Yerevan, Armenia, September 19, 2023 (credit: Vahram Baghdasaryan/Photolure via REUTERS)
Israel-Azerbaijan ties growing amid international pressure
Azerbaijan’s reports indicate that despite the international pressure exerted against Azerbaijan amid the war in Gaza due to its close relations with Israel, President Aliyev continues his policy of fostering relations between the countries and continues to stand by the local Jewish community.
Israeli officials and Jewish leaders who participated in the Security Conference expressed concern about the latest report by the Diaspora Ministry on the state of antisemitism in the world, which indicated a very alarming increase in the rates of attacks and overt antisemitism – even in countries considered friendly to Israel, such as Armenia.
"Antisemitic discourse in Armenia is largely influenced by the relations between Israel and Azerbaijan and the Israeli defense exports to it,” the Diaspora Ministry report said.
“These relations arouse great anger in the Armenian society against the background of the intensification of the Nagorno-Karabakh war between (Armenia and Azerbaijan). However, the fact that the Armenians chose to focus specifically on Israel and not necessarily on other countries that also support them Azerbaijan shows that the antisemitic attitudes in Armenia are much deeper and may even be influenced by external factors,” the report explains.
