Globes: Representatives of US defense giants hold meetings in Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan promoted the idea of holding a meeting between President Ilham Aliyev, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, but the latter's decision to prevent an Israeli plane from flying through Turkish airspace this month led not only to the summit's cancellation but also to the postponement of Netanyahu's visit. Globes writes about it.

This is not the first time that Erdogan, who has imposed a trade embargo against Israel, decides to take such a step. In November, he prevented a plane carrying Israeli President Isaac Herzog to a climate conference in Azerbaijan from flying through Turkish airspace.

Azerbaijan is having difficulty importing defense products from the United States. Initially, after the first Karabakh war in the early 1990s, the U.S. banned arms sales to Azerbaijan and Armenia. These restrictions lasted for about a decade, but traditionally Armenia has been more comfortable working with the Americans due to the strong Armenian lobby in Washington.

This led to a situation where in November 2023, Congress passed legislation called the Armenian Defense Authorization Act of 2023, which blocks any ability of the Secretary of State to authorize arms sales to Azerbaijan.

This happened during the Biden administration, while in the short period after Trump returned to the White House, his special envoy Steve Whitkoff had time to visit Baku.

While this did not result in Azerbaijan joining the Abraham Accords, Globes has learned that senior officials from US defense giants such as Lockheed Martin and RTX are already holding meetings in Baku in hopes that they can reach agreements.

If the move comes to fruition, Israel's defense industry could suffer, as the country is a major arms supplier to Azerbaijan. However, senior Baku officials are also working with Israel to deepen defense cooperation.

As far as foreign policy toward the US is concerned, Azerbaijan believes that the way to Washington is through Israel.

In January, Azerbaijani oil and gas company SOCAR acquired a 10% stake in the Tamar gas field from Mahron Frankel. American giant Chevron owns a quarter of the assets in this field. US President Donald Trump is known to have close ties with senior figures in the US energy industry.

Reprinted from https://news.am/