Recently, the war between Azerbaijan and Armenia in the Nagorno-Karabakh region has been renewed. Last March, Azerbaijan opened an embassy in Tel Aviv, and thus Azerbaijan became the first country in the world with a Muslim-Shia majority to open an embassy in the State of Israel. This is after an Israeli embassy has been operating in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, for about thirty years.
The new ambassador to Israel is Mukhtar Mammadov. In recent years, the Azerbaijan Tourism Bureau has been operating in Israel, headed by Mrs. Jamila Talibzadeh, but there was no diplomatic embassy. We met with Ambassador Mamdov to hear about the goals he set for himself in his new role, especially in the field of tourism.
It turns out that his main plan is to develop the Azeri economy with the help of cooperation with Israel. The volume of mutual trade reached 1.7 billion dollars in 2022, and there is potential for much more. “This is my goal, and this is what I have been doing since I arrived in Israel,” the new ambassador declares.
Ambassador Mamdov: “We are learning from Israel about water desalination, we want to import more drippers for agriculture, and there is an Israeli company that is building a plant for the production of medicines with us. On the other hand, since the 1990s we have been selling to Israel about 40% of its oil consumption. This is alongside agricultural crops such as wheat kernels and tomatoes.”
a question: Israel is known as a technological country. Does it affect bilateral trade?
Ambassador Mamedov: “We need your knowledge in high-tech fields. Azerbaijan also invests in startups in Israel, and we are looking for cooperation to build startups in our ecosystem in Azerbaijan. We will soon start cooperation in the field of space. We published an international tender to build two communication satellites, and the winner of the tender was The Israeli Aerospace Industry Company”.
a question: So in light of this, how do you explain that until now your country did not have an embassy in Israel?
Answer: “This did not prevent the good relations between the heads of the two countries. The Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, visited Baku and is considered a personal friend of our President, Ilham Aliyev, who also visited Israel, and of his father, Haider. All the time, there are reciprocal visits by ministers from both governments. In recent months, your foreign minister, Eli Cohen, followed by the tourism minister, Haim Katz, visited us.”
a question: You mentioned Eli Cohen’s visit to Baku. In Israel it was announced that he had invited President Aliyev for a reciprocal visit. When is this going to happen?
Answer: “It is still unclear. Preparation of a presidential visit takes many months, and I have not yet been instructed to prepare such a visit.”
Ambassador Mamdov adds an important piece of information: “We are Israel’s gateway for export and import cargo to all Central Asian countries.
There are countries in Asia without access to the sea, such as Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan, to which cargoes go through Azerbaijan. “Cargo flights are very expensive, and it is better to transport goods by sea to the Caspian Sea and from there continue by train. That is why Israel transports goods through us, even when we are not the final destination.”
Before Mokhtar Mamdov was appointed ambassador to Israel, he served as Azerbaijan’s deputy minister of education, and even then he was engaged in cooperation with Israel. I ask who he collaborated with and on what?
Ambassador Mamdov: “For the past 4 years, we have been working with the Ort-Israel network to develop curricula in engineering, innovation, and computers. We have trained more than 200 teachers according to these programs. This school year, approximately 150,000 Azeri students are studying according to the special programs we developed with Ort. A delegation recently arrived Ort-Israel teachers to train our teachers in teaching science. We also have collaborations between universities. A few weeks ago I was invited to a graduation ceremony at the HIT Institute of Technology in Holon, where Azeri students also graduated with a bachelor’s degree in computer science. This year, the Hebrew University also begins accepting students from Azerbaijan for biotechnology studies”.
The depth of cooperation can be learned from the Nagorno-Karabakh war 4 years ago, when the Azeris defeated the Armenians with the help of drones and UAVs made by Israel. The Azeris are grateful for that to this day. The Azeris managed to regain 95% of the territory the Armenians occupied years ago.
I ask the ambassador if they gave up the 5% that remained in the hands of the Armenians, or do they have other plans?
Just then, the ambassador from Madov receives a message that a new war has broken out there, and Azerbaijan is attacking Nagorno-Karabakh. I suggest stopping the interview to allow him to work and catch up, but he tells me: “No! Stay!”. We continue while he is constantly looking at the computer screen in front of him.
It seems to us that the ambassador was prepared in advance in his government’s messages regarding the renewed “operation” in Nagorno-Karabakh. “This is an operation against terrorists,” says the ambassador. “The Armenian terrorists are shooting at our forces and scattering landmines in our territories to harm innocent civilians. 308 Azeri citizens have already been hit by the landmines, and 50 of them have been killed. This morning, 6 more of our officers were injured who stepped on the landmine while they were on patrol. It is impossible to be silent to the terrorists. They do not want peace. There is no We have no choice but to repel these violence and provocations by force. We have the right to self-defense!”
Ambassador Mamedov emphasizes that his country has no interest in harming innocent civilians, unlike the Armenian aggressors. “This morning we sent SMS messages to all Armenians in Karabakh to hide in their homes and shelters, and not to approach our forces that have arrived at their locations. Because we are not interested in civilians, but only in fighting terrorists.”
a question: And what’s next? The previous war in 2020 lasted 43 days, and the first war in 1988 lasted about 6 years. How long do you think this promotion will last?
Ambassador Mamedov: “I don’t know yet. The operation only started about an hour ago. After we finish disarming the terrorists and restore order, we will start ceasefire talks followed by peace talks.”
Jewish tourism
Our blog is about Jewish tourism, and I am working to talk with Ambassador Mamdov about these issues. The ambassador refers to the field of tourism as the “desserts” of our conversation, while for us it is the “main course”.
a question: Azerbaijan is considered a Shiite Muslim country. How many Jews live in Azerbaijan?
Ambassador Mamedov: “It is impossible to determine precisely, but the estimate is 20 to 30 thousand Jews. People of many nationalities and many religions live in Azerbaijan. The majority of the population is Shiite Muslim and there is a Sunni minority. There is a minority of Russians, Talish minorities and Turks. Catholic Christians and Protestants. Ashkenazi Jews And Buharis and Sephardim. With us, they are all equal citizens, and our identity cards do not record the nationality and religion of each citizen. So we have no way of knowing who is Jewish.”
where do they live
Most of them live in the town of Gova. Gova is a special town where all the residents are Jews only.
View of houses in the “Red City”
There are also Jewish communities in Baku, the capital, in Sungaid and Ganja. The Jews live in comfort and well-being and with great personal security. “The government respects them, and every year the President congratulates them in honor of the Jewish New Year and Passover. In honor of the Jewish Rosh Hashanah, President Ilham Aliyev also sent greetings to President Herzog, and through him to the entire Jewish people.”
One of the active synagogues at the height
Among the Azeri Jews, Ambassador Mamdov also counted the 80,000 Jews who immigrated from there since the 1990s, and raised large families in Israel.
“There are also Azeri Jewish communities in Acre, Kiryat Yam, Yokneam, and Holon. The embassy maintains close contact with them as well, and I visit them. They have been absorbed in Israel and have reached greatness here. The mayor of Ma’alot is an Azeri, and so are the deputy mayors of Holon, Yokneam, and Kiryat Yam . Many of the Azeri Jews are teachers, doctors, and lawyers. Most of them have dual citizenship, Israeli and our own. Many of them have families that remain in Azerbaijan and they often visit them at celebrations such as weddings and bar mitzvahs.”
That: What can you teach us about Israeli tourism to Azerbaijan?
A: “Every time Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Eli Cohen visit, they also raise the issue of tourism. There is a lot to do to increase tourism. There is a saying in Azeri culture – ‘It is better to see once, than to hear a hundred times.’ I invite the Israelis to come and see At least once, and of course more.”
That: What are the statistics?
A: In 2019, before the corona virus, about 15,000 Israelis came to us. Last year, 24,000 Israelis arrived. This year, until August alone, 22,000 have already arrived. It is an optimistic opening that this year we will break the last record. We have already started working on campaigns to promote tourism in 2024. We have sent delegations of journalists and bloggers and YouTubers, and we will continue to send to spread and publicize the advantages of Azerbaijan.”
“I invite Israelis to visit Azerbaijan. There is a lot to see and do here. One of the biggest attractions here is the Formula 1 race, and I was surprised to find out how few Israelis are aware of this international event. One of my goals is to fix this by next year.”
That: How do we reach you?
A: “A total of two and a half hours of flight. Less than three hours of flight! The airline Air Azerbaijan, which operates the flights from Tbilisi to Baku, recently opened a promotion for families ‘buy a pair of tickets, and get the third one for free.’
That: We know that Azerbaijan is a Muslim country, and there were two attempts by Iran to harm Israelis. Is it safe for Israeli tourists?
A: “Azerbaijan is very safe for tourists from all over the world, and also for Jews from Israel. There were indeed attempted attacks about twenty years ago, but we managed to prevent them, and since then there have been no more such attempts. Guests and women can walk freely in Baku even in the middle of the night. You can see rabbis on the streets with Beards and traditional Hasidic clothing, and no one thinks of harming them. It is very safe here, more so than in Europe. In Germany and France there is police guarding synagogues. We do not need guarding synagogues, because it is safe here.”
That: Gova and the Red City intrigue the religious public because they are settlements on the purity of the Jews. Are you doing tourism development there?
A: “The approach of our government is to let the laws of supply and demand operate independently. The government does not interfere. Local tour operators and tourism wholesalers have put together all kinds of packages that also include Jewish sites, and they sell these packages to Israeli travel agencies, groups and individuals. This arrangement works very well “.
That: But there is a need for infrastructures that are beyond the capacity of private tourism operators. Like roads, train lines, hotels, etc.?
A: “The government is responsible for infrastructure. We have paved a network of highways and wide highways. The trip from Baku to Gova today takes less than two hours in total. Hotels are not us, but businessmen and hoteliers who build according to market requirements. There are plenty of accommodation and hospitality options in the Gova area and the Red City, at levels Popular and at a 5-star level. Cuba is not only a Jewish heritage site, but also an international ski resort with sophisticated facilities and cable cars, and the hotels were also built to host the skiers.”
Ambassador Mamdov surprises me with his knowledge of tourism issues from Israel. The ambassador asked me something about the travel company ‘Asia Travel’ which is among the tourism companies that take out organized trips to Azerbaijan. This is the first time that any ambassador has shown interest in such a resolution of private Israeli tourism companies. Inhale!
