Close cooperation between Israel and Azerbaijan well-known fact, expert says

PanARMENIAN.Net - Close cooperation between Israel and Azerbaijan is a well-known fact, according to a scientific associate at Russian Academy of Sciences’ Oriental Studies Institute.

As Andrei Areshev stated in a conversation with a PanARMENIAN.Net reporter, the two countries specifically stress their close relations in military sector.

“Israel never concealed its active participation in Caucasus issues. Many facts were revealed in August 2008. There’s also information on Israel’s participation in Libya events. It might be supposed that Israel's active foreign policy aims at weakening geopolitical isolation of the country surround by unfriendly states. However, such a course might come at a price for Israel,” the Russian expert stressed.

On February 16, 2007, Israel's ambassador to Azerbaijan, Arthur Lenk, met with the American ambassador to that country, Anne Derse, in the capital city of Baku. Lenk briefed Derse on a meeting between Israel's foreign minister at the time, Tzipi Livni, and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev that had taken place three weeks earlier during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, according to WikiLeaks.

On February 21, a cable about the meeting was sent from the U.S. Embassy in Baku. According to Derse, in responding to her questions, Lenk informed her that Israel and Azerbaijan had made two security agreements. The cable did not give the details of these agreements.