BICOM

• Cohen went first to Azerbaijan, where he was accompanied by 20 representatives of the Israeli cyber, defence, homeland security, water management, and agriculture sectors. The delegation met with representatives of both the private and governmental Azeri sectors.
• Discussions were also held on connecting Israel’s natural gas deposits to Azerbaijan’s pipeline, increasing the potential for delivery of Israeli gas to Europe.
• Azeri officials told Cohen of the country’s desire to expand Israeli imports to include the cyber and solar energy fields. Agreements were also reached which will see the two countries cooperate on space exploration.
• After their meeting, Cohen thanked President Ilham Aliyev for the opening of the Azeri embassy in Tel Aviv last month and confirmed that they had discussed “our shared strategic regional challenges, especially regional security and the fight against terrorism.”
• Cohen then proceeded to Turkmenistan, becoming the first Israeli Foreign Minister to visit the Central Asian state in 29 years.
• Yesterday Cohen formally opened Israel’s first permanent embassy in the capital of Ashgabat, also meeting with President Serdar Berdimuhamedow.
• According to the Foreign Ministry, they also discussed expanding cooperation in cyber-tech, agriculture, and water technology.
• “Turkmenistan is an extremely important country in Central Asia and an energy powerhouse in a strategic location,” said Cohen. “The opening of our permanent embassy today strengthens the relationship between the two countries.”

Context: Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan are of high strategic importance, both for their location and energy resources.

• Israeli-Azeri ties have been deepening for some years, Cohen’s visit following the trip made by then Defence Minister Benny Gantz last October.
• Azerbaijan has become more publicly open about its ties with Israel in recent years, breaking a tradition of opacity based on a reluctance to antagonise its Iranian neighbour.
• In opening its Tel Aviv embassy, and recently appointing its first permanent ambassador, it became the first majority Shiite Muslim state to do so.
• Commercial ties between the two countries are mutually significant. Israel imports 30% of its oil from Azerbaijan, while Israel provided 69% of Baku’s major arms imports from 2016-2020: 17% of Israel’s arms exports over the period.
• Israel also provided valuable support to the Azeris during the 2020 Second Nagorno-Karabakh War with Armenia, after which Azeri-Iranian tensions increased, with Tehran carrying out provocative military exercises on the Azeri border.
• Multiple reports have suggested that the Azeris grant Israel use of its territory for the launching of reconnaissance missions into Iran, and that any future Israeli strike on the Iranian nuclear programme could benefit from a similar Azeri base.
• Israel has operated a temporary embassy facility in Turkmenistan for the past ten years.
• “This is a visit to the lion’s maw, a country that is between Russia and Iran, and everything that that implies,” said one member of Cohen’s diplomatic party.
• Moscow’s influence in Central Asia, which continued to be considerable even following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, has shown signs of decreasing in the last year to eighteen months.
• None of the Republics have backed its invasion of Ukraine and all have complied with sanctions on the Putin government.
• Turkey, with whom Israel has a complex relationship, is another key regional player, enjoying close linguistic-cultural and political ties with the Central Asian states, coordinating relations through the five-member Organization of Turkic States.
• With Europe eager to divest from Russian energy, Turkey is also seen as a key gateway to supplying the continent with both oil and natural gas from alternative sources, including both Israel and Central Asian and Caucus states like Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. Any advances to access to the gas pipeline must go through Turkey.
• Israel’s desire to supply Europe has been hampered by technical and diplomatic hurdles since the discovery of Israeli gas fields in the Mediterranean
• Israel and Turkmenistan established diplomatic relations 30 years ago, and the new embassy is now Israel’s third in Central Asia, joining those in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
• The opening of a permanent embassy in Ashgabat is of symbolic importance. Located a mere 15 kilometres from the Iranian border, the new embassy becomes Israel’s closest diplomatic mission to the Islamic Republic.
• Notably, ambassadors from other states united by concern over Iran, such as the United Arab Emirates, Azerbaijan and the US, were present at the embassy opening.
• Although ties remain stronger with Tehran than they do in Azerbaijan, the last few years have seen Turkmenistan pivot more towards Iran’s rivals in the Gulf States, with several of whom Israel enjoys increasingly close relations.
• Turkmenistan is a virtually closed state, regarded by human rights observers as a repressive dictatorship and notable for widescale abuses and corruption.
• Like the other Central Asian states, it continues to face the effects of Islamist terror, with a number of its citizens joining both al-Qaeda and Islamic State in recent years.
• The return of the Taliban to neighbouring Afghanistan has only heightened concerns about the Jihadi influence, and in December 2022 Israel hosted a delegation from the Central Asian states to share knowledge on border and cyber security.

Looking ahead: In a sign of the high value placed on the Azeri relationship, Israeli President Isaac Herzog is likely to visit Azerbaijan by the end of May, with the Azeri Foreign Minister also likely to make a return visit to Israel soon.

• Berdimuhamedov indicated that he was considering following Azerbaijan in ordering the opening of a Turkmenistan embassy in Israel soon.