Azerbaijan sees surging number of Israeli visitors

The number of arrivals from Israel to Azerbaijan quadrupled in 2022 compared to the previous year and made up 23,935 people.

The number of Israeli citizens visiting Azerbaijan in the past five months of 2023 increased by 70 per cent compared to the same period last year and made up 8,611 people, the State Tourism Agency told Caliber.Az.

Direct flights from Tel Aviv to Baku are currently organised seven times a week.

Azerbaijan and Israel have engaged in close cooperation since 1992. Azerbaijan is one of the majority Muslim countries to develop bilateral strategic and economic relations with Israel.

On March 29, the embassy of Azerbaijan has been officially inaugurated in Israel.

The opening ceremony was attended by the two countries` foreign ministers Jeyhun Bayramov and Eli Cohen, as well as MPs, members of the general public and artists.

On November 26, 2022, President Ilham Aliyev issued an order to establish the Azerbaijani Embassy in the State of Israel, signalling another important step forward in the diplomatic relations between the two countries. On January 11, the President appointed Mukhtar Mammadov as the first Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Azerbaijan to Israel, marking another significant milestone in the bilateral relationship between the Muslim-majority nation and the Jewish state.

Israel is an important exporter of arms to Azerbaijan: according to research of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Israel accounted for 27 per cent of Azerbaijan’s major arms imports from 2011 to 2020 and from 2016 to 2020, Israel accounted for 69 per cent of Azerbaijan’s major arms imports.