23 August 2024
Bahruz Samadov submitted this article shortly before his arrest on 21 August. He was charged with treason on 23 August, and could face 12–20 years in prison or a life sentence if found guilty.
Despite long being ‘brotherly’ nations, the Israel-Gaza war appears to have exacerbated existing tensions between Turkey and Azerbaijan, potentially pushing the two countries apart irrevocably.
In recent months, relations between Azerbaijan and Turkey have been uncharacteristically cool. To observers who have heard the rhetoric around the two countries’ alliance — most prominently, the phrase that they are ‘two states’ but ‘one nation’ — this may come as a surprise.
It might also surprise the observer that a significant factor in this estrangement has been Turkey’s unconditional support for Palestine compared to Azerbaijan’s relatively neutral stance.
One example of this came in late July, when President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s statement about Turkey’s decisive role in the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War prompted anger, albeit not official, in Azerbaijan. Erdoğan made his statement in the context of the Israel–Palestine conflict, suggesting that Turkey might take a similar role in that conflict, and effectively positioning Palestine and Azerbaijan as equally oppressed nations. Erdoğan’s claim was met with discomfort in part because it factually contested Azerbaijan’s narrative around the war, and its ‘monopoly over victory’.
Not only Erdoğan’s claim, but also Turkey’s support of the Palestinian cause has irritated Azerbaijan. Soon after Erdoğan’s statement, Turkey declared a day of mourning over Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh — a sentiment that Azerbaijani society neither shares nor comprehends.
While differences between Azerbaijan and Turkey are noticeable to both nations, Azerbaijan’s unwillingness to join anti-Israel rhetoric has become an increasingly significant factor contributing to airing their grievances.
The story behind Azerbaijan’s attitude towards Israel
For many Turks, Azerbaijan’s positive attitude towards Israel and its very limited support for Palestine — for example an absence of any public events or virtual discourse — is frustrating. But the reasons for Azerbaijan’s difference in attitudes and behaviour to those of Turkey are multifaceted, and not only attributable to rational self-interest.
While hostilities between Azerbaijanis and Armenians living in the territories of present-day Azerbaijan began more than a century ago, Azerbaijanis and Jews living in Azerbaijan have never shared negative sentiments towards each other. Azerbaijan’s present-day Jewish community is centred around the Red Village, where a Mountainous Jewish community has existed for over two hundred years.
Another reason for the particular affection that Muslim-majority Azerbaijanis have towards Jewish people and Israel is connected to the First Nagorno-Karabakh War (1988–1994). In 1992, ethnic Mountainous Jew Albert Agarunov died defending the town of Shusha. In an interview conducted that year, Agarunov was asked what made him ‘defend Azerbaijani lands’ despite not being ethnically Azerbaijani. He replied that he was ‘protect[ing] his homeland’, and that he was ready to fight ‘until the very end of the war’.
This episode gained widespread public attention, and had a huge impact on the formation of the image of Jews as a friendly nation in the Azerbaijani social imagination, which is haunted by an obsessive friend-enemy distinction based on anti-Armenian antagonism and loyalty to the state as a sacral and security-providing entity.
Alongside such emotional associations, Israel has also very materially contributed to Azerbaijan’s military achievements. Israel’s arms exports played a profound role in Azerbaijan’s victory in the 2020 war and the 2023 September clashes in Nagorno-Karabakh; specifically the Israel-produced HAROP, a loitering munition. Azerbaijan, in turn, supplies oil to Israel, and also domestically suppresses Iran-sympathising Shia dissidents, leveraging the bogeyman of Islamist extremism with Western partners.
Pan-Turkic anti-Arabism
Attitudes towards Arabic states and culture also factor into Azerbaijan's positioning. Since the 2020 war especially, secular loyalty to the state has been accompanied by pan-Turkist ideas: the Azerbaijani state is a Turkic state and a part of the Turkic world, a view stressed by President Aliyev in his 2024 inaugural speech. Pan-Turkic and pan-national Turanist ideas have left deep traces in Azerbaijan’s self-perception since the 1990s.
Alongside such ideas, many Azerbaijanis believe that Arabs brought Islam to them by force, and they in turn fought against Arabic expansionism in the 9th century. Such a perspective on Islam is very marginal in Turkey. In Azerbaijan, however, this narrative has been taught since the Soviet times, when myth-making was a part of the nativisation and anti-religious secularisation policy. For example, Babak, the leader of a neo-Zoroastrian cult who led the resistance movement in the region against the Arabs, was presented as an ethnic Azerbaijani in Soviet Azerbaijani history textbooks as well as in a famous 1979 film, to prove that Azerbaijanis were native to the territory.
The final reason for Azerbaijan’s positioning in favour of Israel brings us back to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Many Azerbaijanis believe that Palestinians supported Armenia, especially the late Palestinian leader Yaser Arafat; a claim that has been debunked. One source of this association comes from the involvement of the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia in Lebanese affairs against Israel in the 1970s. The notorious group organised several attacks against Turkish diplomats and was designated as a terrorist organisation in Azerbaijan. One of the leaders of the militant organisation, Monte Melkonyan, fought and died in the First Nagorno-Karabakh War, and was accused of war crimes by Azerbaijan. The group has consequently been associated with Arabic peoples and states without further investigation.
For these reasons, many Azerbaijanis see themselves as alienated by or opposed to Turkey’s support for Palestine. As a result, the conflict has produced a marked shift in the perception of Turkey’s Erdoğan as Azerbaijan’s main ally since the end of the Nagorno-Karabakh War.
Responding to Erdoğan
On 1 August, two days after Erdoğan’s statement, official state-owned newspaper Azerbaijan published a de facto response. The article’s title was ‘The author of the Karabakh victory is The Victorious Supreme Commander-in-Chief and the Azerbaijani Army’. The article describes Erdoğan’s statement using a metaphor widely recognised in Azerbaijan: ‘pouring water into the Armenian watermill’.
The article stressed the unity of the people, army, and president of Azerbaijan in the victory. The author also reminded readers of the different favours Azerbaijan has done for Turkey, such as providing assistance after the earthquake in the Turkish city of Kahramanmaraş, and inviting Turkish companies to operate in Nagorno-Karabakh, while stressing that ‘brotherhood requires mutual responsibilities’. Another point made is that Azerbaijan bought weapons from Turkey. The article does not discuss Turkey’s involvement in Palestine.
As such rifts appear and threaten to widen, the future of Azerbaijan’s ties with Turkey will likely remain pragmatic and practical — something similar to Azerbaijan’s energy-based politics with the European Union. It appears that the ‘special brotherhood’ is no longer required, and the two countries have chosen different paths.
