With an Eye on Nearby Iran, Israeli Weapons Fuel the Violence in Azerbaijan
Hoping to profit, protect an important source of oil, and to antagonize
nearby Iran, Israel is selling drones and weapons to Azerbaijan, fueling the
conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh.
by Raul Diego
October 19th, 2020
By Raul Diego
The latest iteration of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, which has already
claimed the lives of dozens of people, had been largely forgotten by the
world before hostilities reignited in September. Only the collapse of the
Soviet Union was able to bring about the end of the last war between these
entrenched enemies in the 1980s and 1990s. Now, almost a quarter of a
century later, the still contested region claimed under international law by
Azerbaijan and de facto controlled by its ethnic Armenian majority has
fallen under a new spell of violence thanks in large part to external actors
vying for a larger war with another neighboring country: Iran.
Three weeks ago, a dispute over a piece of territory in the Caucasus
Mountains erupted into a hot war between the two former Soviet republics of
Azerbaijan and Armenia, sending civilians in Nagorno-Karabakh to seek cover
in their basements from the aerial drone strikes raining death and
destruction from above.
In a video analyzed by Franceinfo, a 1K Orbiter "kamikaze" drone was found
intact on the streets of the ethnically-Armenian enclave near the
Azeri-Armenian border. As its moniker implies, this class of unmanned aerial
vehicles (UAVs) is so named because once its operators lock onto a target on
the ground the UAV dives into them with an explosive charge.
The drone was developed by leading Israeli unmanned aerial systems (UAS)
company Aeronautics Defense Systems, which has a manufacturing plant in
Azerbaijan since 2011. The discovery of the drone's use by Azeri forces in
the disputed border region has highlighted the pivotal, yet largely
underreported, role that Israel is playing in this conflict, giving the
Azeri army a decided advantage against the overmatched Armenians.
In addition, Turkey's clear support of the Azerbaijani state leaves the
majority Christian nation of Armenia up against the two biggest regional
powers aside from Russia, which five days ago called on both parties in the
conflict to respect a second cease-fire agreement brokered on October 10,
2020, in Moscow. The truce was supposed to come into force on Saturday, but
heavy artillery fire, missiles, and drones continued to fall in the conflict
zone on Sunday, with both sides blaming the other for violating the
tentative armistice. The religious nature of the conflict's origins helps to
disguise the active participation of outside interests that are intent on
stoking it for their own geopolitical purposes.
Black gold in Baku
Control over natural resources underpins virtually every single military
conflagration in the twentieth century and many of raging across the world
at the start of the twenty-first. The escalating conflict in the Caucasus is
no exception, despite the ostensibly religious motives some would like to
ascribe to the parties involved.
While Muslim-majority Azerbaijan might seem like a natural enemy of majority
Christian Armenia, at its core, the conflict unfolding in northern Eurasia
is one that harkens to the very first oil well that was discovered in the
Azerbaijani capital of Baku. Baku was the center of the black gold universe
on the eve of World War I before Israel even existed as a state and just as
Lord Balfour was on the verge of penning the infamous Balfour Declaration,
which would eventually lead to its creation.
Today, the apartheid state obtains 40 percent of its oil from Baku, leaving
little to the imagination about its interest in the regional conflict. In
order to protect those interests, Israel has become one of Azerbaijan's
largest arms suppliers in recent years, providing up to 61 percent of all
Azeri arms imports this past year, according to the Stockholm International
Peace Research Institute.
Claims made last week by an aide to the Azerbaijani president belittled
Armenian condemnations of Israel's role as "exaggerated" after the Armenian
foreign ministry recalled its ambassador to Israel over the weapons sales.
As if to underscore the Azeri official's disingenuous statement, an Israeli
high court dismissed a call by human rights activist Elie Joseph to halt
arms sales to Azerbaijan two days later, citing a lack of evidence.
A powder keg
The situation in Nagorno-Karabakh could easily devolve into a wider war
between far more powerful actors, like Turkey and Russia. The latter has a
defense treaty with Armenia, while the former's relationship to the oldest
Christian country in the world is beset by its historic refusal to
acknowledge the Armenian Genocide - the systematic mass murder and expulsion
of Armenians from what was still the capital of Ottoman Empire during and
after World War I.
Signs that the conflict is heading in the wrong direction are becoming more
noticeable. On Friday, October 16, Russia announced that its navy was
beginning military exercises in the Caspian Sea to the north of Baku.
Meanwhile, Armenian President Armen Sarkissian said on Saturday that he is
ready to travel to European headquarters in Brussels to confront NATO over
Ankara's actions, which include funneling mercenaries from Syria to
Azerbaijan.
More importantly, Iran could also be dragged into a larger war and could
hold the key to unraveling Israel's geopolitical motivation for their
significant involvement in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Iran shares a
common cultural heritage with Armenia, despite religious differences, and
counts the Christian nation as a strategic partner.
One day before the second cease-fire was supposed to take effect, the
Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry accused Armenian forces of launching rocket
attacks into Iranian territory as a provocation, which led the Iranian
Foreign Ministry to issue a statement clarifying that "aggression against
our country's territories by any party" in the conflict would not be
tolerated.
