{"id":164572,"date":"2012-02-27T12:37:17","date_gmt":"2012-02-27T08:37:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.epress.am\/?p=164572"},"modified":"2012-02-27T12:42:34","modified_gmt":"2012-02-27T08:42:34","slug":"israel-sells-drones-missiles-to-azerbaijan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/2012\/02\/27\/israel-sells-drones-missiles-to-azerbaijan.html","title":{"rendered":"Israel Sells Drones, Missiles to Azerbaijan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Israeli defense officials on Feb. 26 confirmed a deal to sell Azerbaijan drones, antiaircraft, and missile defense systems for some $1.6 billion, reports <span style=\"color: #000080;\"><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rferl.org\/content\/azerbaijan_israel_iran_missiles_drones\/24496978.html\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">RFE\/RL<\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/span> based on AP and Reuters reporting.<\/p>\n<p>Azerbaijan&#8217;s contract is with the state-run Israel Aerospace Industries. Israeli defense officials, speaking under condition of anonymity, said the deal had been in the works for some time and was not a response to Iran&#8217;s nuclear development program or recent attempts, allegedly by Iranian agents, to kill Israeli diplomats in India, Thailand, Georgia and Azerbaijan.<\/p>\n<p>Israeli media reported late last year that there was a deal for Israel to sell 60 drones of two types to Azerbaijan and that in September 2011 there were discussions about joint Israeli-Azerbaijani construction of drones with missiles.<\/p>\n<p>Also in September 2011, an Israeli-built drone with Azerbaijani Air Force markings was <span style=\"color: #000080;\"><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.epress.am\/en\/2011\/09\/15\/azerbaijan-silent-on-drone-reportedly-shot-down-in-nagorno-karabakh.html\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">reportedly shot down<\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/span> over the disputed Nagorno-Karabkah enclave claimed by both Azerbaijan and Armenia.<\/p>\n<p>Iran&#8217;s Foreign Ministry earlier this month accused Baku of allowing Israel&#8217;s spy agency Mossad to operate in Azerbaijan, which shares, including the Nakhchivan enclave, a border with Iran more than 600 kilometers long.<\/p>\n<p>The news of Israel&#8217;s sale of the military equipment comes as tensions over Iran&#8217;s nuclear program are reaching critical levels. A team from the UN&#8217;s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) visited Iran on Feb. 20\u201321 and returned saying Iran had stepped up work on enriching uranium and that there were serious concerns about &#8220;possible military dimensions&#8221; to Iran&#8217;s nuclear program.<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Israeli defense officials on Feb. 26 confirmed a deal to sell Azerbaijan drones, antiaircraft, and missile defense systems for some $1.6 billion.<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":164471,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tstyn_error":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164572"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164572\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/164471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}