Kamal Kharrazi, a senior foreign policy advisor to Iran's Supreme Leader, expressed concern about what he called Israel's presence in Azerbaijan Republic, which borders Iran to the northwest.
"Countries should take their neighbors' sensitivities into consideration," Kharrazi said during a Sunday meeting with the Azeri presidential assistant Hikmet Hajiyev in Tehran.
Last month, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev condemned remarks by Iranian cleric Seyyed Hassan Ameli, the Friday Prayer Leader of Ardabil who accused Azerbaijan of collaborating with Israel and described President Aliyev's policies as part of a "multi-billion-dollar gamble with the Israelis."
Tehran has long been critical of Baku’s close ties with Israel, while Azerbaijan has expressed frustration over Tehran’s alleged provocations, including inflammatory rhetoric by Iranian clerics and media.
On January 25, Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs summoned the chargé d'affaires at Iran's Embassy in Baku to lodge a protest over alleged anti-Azerbaijan content in Iranian media.
Tensions further escalated earlier in January after Azerbaijan’s security services said they had foiled a plot to assassinate a prominent local Jewish figure for $200,000.
Two suspects were arrested, with Azerbaijani officials alleging they acted "under the guidance of a foreign country." While no nation was explicitly named, sources within Azerbaijan’s Jewish community have pointed to Iran.
Also in December, an Iranian lawmaker has accused the United States, Israel, and Azerbaijan of orchestrating the helicopter crash that claimed the life of former President Ebrahim Raisi, rejecting the official explanation of a weather-related malfunction as implausible.
Iranian officials have also been occasionally accusing Azerbaijan of allowing Israel to set up intelligence and military bases on its territory as an operational base against Iran.
However, Azerbaijan's ambassador to Israel Mukhtar Mammadov said in 2023 his country would not let Israel’s military to use Azerbaijan as a base for a possible attack against Iran.
