Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian has called for an investigation into whether Azerbaijan’s airspace was used by Israeli drones as they flew missions to attack Iran during their recent conflict.
Pezeshkian urged Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev during a call on June 26 to “investigate and verify” reports that Israeli drones, including micro-drones, may have entered Iranian air space via Azerbaijani territory.
According to the official Iranian readout of the conversation, Aliyev denied the claims and insisted that his government would not allow Azerbaijan’s territory to be used against Iran.
However, there is no mention of this exchange in the official Azerbaijani account of the call.
On the same day, Israeli media cited an unnamed defense official as saying that Israeli Defense Forces had been operating in a country "close" to Iran during the war, without offering further details.
Azerbaijan’s deepening ties with Israel have long been a source of unease in Tehran.
The relationship has grown closer in recent years, marked by significant defense cooperation and the opening of an Azerbaijani embassy in Tel Aviv in 2023, moves that Iranian officials view with increasing suspicion.
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), Israeli-made weapons constituted approximately 69 percent of all major conventional arms imported by Azerbaijan between 2016 and 2020.
