Finance Minister Avigdor Liberman’s visit to Azerbaijan April 22 was officially intended to discuss economic issues, especially the increased import of petroleum and other products to Israel. At the same time, however, it was also intended to strengthen the security relationship between the two states.

Azerbaijan lies on the northwest border of Iran, the country most hostile to Israel and its most dangerous enemy. But Israel is also the largest supplier of weapons to Azerbaijan. According to SIPRI (the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute), some 60% of Azerbaijan’s defense imports in 2015-2019 originated in Israel, while in 2020, that number jumped to almost 70%.

One main reason for this is large arms sales, mainly of gliders and drones before and during Azerbaijan’s war with Armenia in autumn 2020. These weapons played an important role in the Azeri victory. President Ilham Aliyev was photographed affectionately patting an Israeli Harop drone produced by Israel Aircraft Industries. It is considered one of the best unmanned aircraft of its kind in the world. This relationship between Israel and Azerbaijan dates back over a decade when the two nations signed an enormous arms deal valued at $1.4 billion.

Aliyev is fostering his country’s ties with Israel, much to the chagrin of the Iranian leadership in Tehran. In October 2021, after a mysterious fire broke out in an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) facility, Iran announced a major military exercise along the Azerbaijani border. The Azeris do not admit to any significant Israeli security presence in their country. On the other hand, they did announce that they uncovered an Iranian spy ring there. According to Israeli diplomatic sources, Liberman went to Baku to strengthen Israel’s defense ties with the country, in addition to the economic issues that were also discussed.