Azerbaijan Denies Israeli Presence near Border with Iran

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Azerbaijan's Foreign Ministry denied in a statement on Monday any Israeli presence near the country's border with Iran.

This statement came in response to military drills carried out by Tehran in the northwest of the country near the border with Azerbaijan, as Baku is accused of using security forces affiliated with the Israeli occupation.

Leyla Abdullayeva, Azerbaijan's foreign ministry spokesperson, said on Monday that Iran's claims were baseless.

"We reject the allegations of any third party's presence near the Azerbaijani-Iranian border, such allegations are totally baseless," she said. 

Abdullayeva believed that ending the "occupation of Azerbaijani lands," stopping Armenia's "illegal" actions, and ensuring stability and security in the region should be in the interest of Iran.

Last week, Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev criticized Iran's military drills in an interview with Turkish news agency Anadolu, asking "why now, and why on our border?"

"Israel" came under diplomatic fire from Armenia during last year's conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh territory. The Zionist entity is a major arms supplier to the Azeri side. The conflict ended with a Russian-brokered ceasefire between the two sides.

Relations between Iran and Azerbaijan got complicated after the Azeri army held joint drills with Turkey and Pakistan, 500 kilometers from the country's border with Iran.

Earlier, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian stated during a joint press conference with his Armenian counterpart that the current tensions between Iran and Azerbaijan are due to the presence of "Zionists and terrorists" in parts of the region.