Facing complex negotiations on Ukraine, Gaza, and Iran, the Trump Administration would love to claim a diplomatic victory. What about looking to add another signatory to the already successful Abraham Accords? An ideal candidate would be Azerbaijan, where Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was supposed to arrive on May 7, but has postponed his visit. He delayed the trip due to the escalations in the war against Hamas in Gaza, the Islamist regime attacks against the Druze minority in Syria, and planned retaliation for Houthi ballistic missile attack against the main Israeli airport. Turkey and Iran also courted Azerbaijan to derail the rapprochement between Jerusalem and Baku. Ankara and Tehran would like nothing more than to kill any possibility of Baku joining the Abraham Accords.
The American Jewish community takes note. In early March, a group of influential rabbis sent a letter to President Trump to make a strong case that Azerbaijan should join the Abraham Accords. They also underlined that US sanctions against Azerbaijan should be dropped in light of Baku being a steady ally of Washington and the most reliable Muslim strategic partner of Israel over the past 30 years. And so, in mid-March, Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, travelled to Baku to strengthen the U.S./ Azerbaijani /Israeli relationship and push for a fifth country to join the Abraham Accords after the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan.
In fact, Azerbaijan should have been the first country to sign the Abraham Accords since, contrary to other Muslim countries, Azerbaijan is a nation where the recognition of the State of Israel is not limited to the ruling elites but is widely accepted among the population. Furthermore, Azerbaijan is the first Shia country to open an embassy in Israel despite repeated threats and pressure from Iran.
In early April, pushing for a closer relationship, President Trump wrote a letter to Azerbaijan's president Aliyev stating, “Our countries have a long history of working together, and I look forward to the great things we can accomplish in the years to come.”
Neighboring Iran detests this rapprochement with the US and Israel and would like to stop it at all costs. Another essential matter for Tehran is that Azerbaijan is the key mediator between Turkey and Israel over the complex friction between Ankara and Jerusalem over Syria. This tremendously bothers Tehran, which would like to regain its footing in Syria, lost when Assad was kicked out of power by Turkey-supported HTS.
To restore its credibility vis-à-vis Baku, Tehran must erase its history of using its favorite asymmetrical weapon, terrorism. In fact, over the past few years, Baku has foiled several Iranian-linked terror plots against Israeli or Jewish targets, including this January, an al-Quds planned attack against a prominent member of the Azerbaijani Jewish community. Back in January 2023, an attack took place against the Azerbaijani embassy in Tehran, resulting in the death of the head of security and two security guards being wounded. This was the last straw for Baku, which closed its embassy in Tehran. The closure lasted a full 18 months, so in this context, the visit of the Iranian president to Baku a few days ago was quite significant.
The narrative of the Iranian media proves how Tehran has decided to use the carrot rather than the stick to charm Baku. Not long ago, Azerbaijan was described as the “territory controlled by Baku”, alluding to Iran’s “ancient right” to this land. Tehran alluded to coercive methods, such as the recent Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps joint exercises with Armenia. Now, after Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian's visit to Baku, which was unsuccessful primarily, official publications expect President Aliyev to give up the strategic alliance with Israel. Iranian media are rife with plans to “tear Baku away from the Zionists”.
This is a strategically important topic for Tehran. In the state-controlled media Pars an article titled “How to Keep Azerbaijan Away from Israel” explains the threats to Iran emerging from a close relationship between Jerusalem and Baku:
Due to Israel's extensive mutual, economic, political, military and security relations with the Republic of Azerbaijan, especially the extensive purchase of oil as a vital artery and strategic product and the sale of weapons as a strategic acquisition for Baku, as well as Turkey's political and military support for this country, the relations between these two countries with Baku have further developed, which has created numerous geopolitical and geo-economic threats against the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The author goes on to focus on five concrete steps Tehran must take to break the bonds between Jerusalem and Baku. Among those, to become a top buyer of Azerbaijani oil, overshadow Israel’s purchases, and appoint an Iranian ambassador to Azerbaijan.
In the next few weeks, Azerbaijan is likely to demonstrate in which camp it is. Washington is rife with rumors that Azerbaijan will soon become the next signatory to the Abraham Accords. The Trump administration is likely to gain a diplomatic victory: adding an important, non-Arab partner to the crown diplomatic achievement of his first term, the Abraham Accords.