Terror threat in Baku, and new Wikileaks on the Israel-Azerbaijan relationship

Speculation in Baku was rife last week over the temporary closing on Monday of the Israeli embassy.  Many news sources such as the opposition newspaper Yeni Musavat theorized that the reason for the closing of the embassy was security-related.  In any case, the embassy was apparently closed for “technical reasons” and re-opened.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry had warned against possible terror attacks or kidnappings against Israeli citizens in a handful of countries including Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia, Egypt and Turkey. The heightened threat level was triggered due to possible threats tied to the anniversary of the assassination of two Hezbollah officials –  Imad Mughniyah and Abbas al-Masawi.  Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency may have been behind the assassination of Mughniyah in 2008, although he had many enemies.  Al-Masawi was killed in an Israeli helicopter assault in 1992.

Coincidentally—or not—the US Department of State has issued travel alerts for Azerbaijan and other locations not once but twice since late January.  Matthew Bryza, the new US ambassador to Azerbaijan, told the press on Thursday that the terror threat is “very serious.”

Speaking of Israel, Friday’s release by Wikileaks of a 2009 State Department cable on the “discreet symbiosis” between Israel and Azerbaijan is a fascinating read.  The document is an insightful look at the common strategic interests of the two countries, and for anyone who thinks that Armenia is Azerbaijan’s chief security threat, it’s a must-read.  I’ve been saying for years that in the highest reaches of Azerbaijan’s government, Iran is seen as the number one security problem, and neither this cable nor previous Wikileaks releases contain anything to the contrary.

As the cable in question puts it:

“Much like Israel, Azerbaijan perceives Iran as a major, even existential security threat, and the two countries’ cooperation flows from this shared recognition.”

The cooperation includes a complex web of weapons sales by Israel to Azerbaijan, including “mortars, ammunition, rocket artillery,” and “upgrade kits” for its Soviet-era rocket launcher systems.  Sophisticated Israeli weapons fill a gap for Azerbaijan, which often is unable to buy weapons from countries such as the US due to the latter’s unwillingness to fuel a regional arms race.

In return, the Azerbaijan government has, according to the cable, swiftly rounded up would-be demonstrators intending to picket outside the Israeli embassy in Baku.  (The Azerbaijani government, no doubt sensitive to the reaction in the Muslim world, does not operate an embassy in Israel.)  As the cable notes, Azeri demonstrations outside the Iranian embassy in Baku are not uncommon:

“When authorities got word of a planned demonstration on January 2, they dispatched buses to the place where the protesters were preparing to set off for the Embassy and arrested them on the spot. Police detained 25 of the 150 demonstrators rounded up, and 20 of them were sentenced to 10 or 15 days, detention. In sharp contrast, the GOAJ allows demonstrators to picket the Iranian Embassy, so long as the subject of the protest is the treatment of Azeris in Iran.”

The cable goes on to describe how the Azerbaijani government has attempted (successfully, according to the document) to get the “US pro-Israel lobby to advocate on its behalf.”

One of the humorous notes in the cable is the complaint by the Israeli Deputy Chief of Mission that “Israeli businessmen…prefer corruption in Kazakhstan to that of Azerbaijan because in Kazakhstan one can expect to pay exorbitant ‘fees’ to do business but those are generally collected at once, up front, whereas in Azerbaijan the demands for bribes never cease.”

Finally, the most interesting section of the cable is fleeting and easy to miss.  But it alludes to something that has been hinted at for years:  that Israel has an active intelligence-gathering capability in Azerbaijan.  The wording in the cable is simply that for Israel, Azerbaijan is a “platform for reconnaissance” of Iran.

For readers eager to delve into the matter, I’d recommend two articles on the Israeli-Azerbaijani relationship.  The first is by Soner Cagapty and Alexander Murinson, written for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and can be found here.

The second article, by Ilya Bourtman, is aptly titled “Israel and Azerbaijan’s Furtive Embrace,” and is from the Middle East Forum here.

More to come soon at the Caucasus blog on protests in Armenia…