Iran, Azerbaijan reset ties amid geopolitical shifts: Can balance hold?
Despite Baku's rapprochement with Tehran, deep strategic mistrust and competing alliances continue to shape their cautious engagement.
In a number of policy moves over the last two months, Iran and Azerbaijan have effectively completed their normalization of bilateral relations, managing to build on shared geopolitical interests amid mutual distrust.
On May 21, Iran announced that it had executed the man accused of carrying out a deadly attack on the Azerbaijani embassy in early 2023. Meanwhile, the two countries held large-scale bilateral military drills, dubbed Araz-2025, May 18-21. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian had visited Baku in April to discuss ways to elevate bilateral relations.
"Our goal, our primary goal is to raise Azerbaijani-Iranian interstate relations to a higher level," said Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in a statement to the press in Pezeshkian's presence.
Strategic calculus
