Baku denies granting Israel air base access

BAKU - Hürriyet Daily News

Azerbaijani President Aliyev (R) is seen in this photo. Baku denies claims that it granted Israel access to its air bases. REUTERS photo

Azerbaijan yesterday denied allegations made by a U.S. magazine that it had granted Israel access to its air bases which could assist in potential strikes against its neighbor Iran.

Citing anonymous senior U.S. diplomats and military intelligence officers, the article published in Foreign Policy magazine on March 28 suggested that cooperation between Azerbaijan and Israel was “heightening the risks of an Israeli strike on Iran.”

The article suggested that access to Azerbaijani airfields near the Iranian border could give Israeli fighter planes logistical advantages in carrying out sorties against nuclear facilities in Iran.

‘Absurd information’

But the Azerbaijani defense ministry said the claims were untrue. “This information is absurd and groundless,” defense ministry spokesman Teymur Abdullayev told Agence France-Presse. A senior official at Azerbaijan’s presidential administration said such speculation was “aimed at damaging relations between Azerbaijan and Iran.”

“We have stated on numerous occasions and we reiterate that there will be no actions against Iran... from the territory of Azerbaijan,” presidential official Ali Hasanov told journalists in Baku.

Relations between Baku and Tehran have become increasingly strained in recent months with Iran unhappy about Azerbaijan’s friendly links with Israel and its reported purchase of hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of weapons from Israel.

Tehran last month accused Azerbaijan of working with Israel’s spy services and helping assassins who murdered Iranian nuclear scientists in recent years -- a claim rejected by Baku as “slander.” Tensions have also flared over a series of recent arrests in Azerbaijan of suspected attack plotters with alleged links to Tehran.