Azerbaijan denied claims in a U.S. magazine report on Thursday that it granted Israel access to air bases on the border it shares with Iran, in the event of a future attack on Iran.
According to Wednesday’s report Foreign Policy magazine, senior U.S. diplomats and military intelligence officials claim that the Israel Air Force was given access to land in Azerbaijan in the event of an Iran strike.
“The Israelis have bought an airfield,” a senior U.S. administration official told Foreign Policy magazine’s Mark Perry, “and the airfield is called Azerbaijan.”
Azerbaijan’s defense ministry denied the claims, according to an AFP report.
“This information is absurd and groundless,” the AFP reported a defense ministry spokesman, Teymur Abdullayev, as saying, while citing a senior official at Azerbaijan’s presidential administration as saying that the allegations were “aimed at damaging relations between Azerbaijan and Iran.”
Ali Hasanov, a presidential official, also told reporters in Baku, “We have stated on numerous occasions and we reiterate that there will be no actions against Iran… from the territory of Azerbaijan,” according to the AFP report.
Earlier this month, Azerbaijan authorities arrested 22 people suspected of plotting to attack the Israeli and American embassies in the capital Baku. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards was reportedly behind the plan to attack Israeli and U.S. targets in the country, according to Azerbaijan’s national security ministry.
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