Tensions between Israel and Iran are growing following Iran’s progress toward developing a nuclear bomb. The defense minister noted that Tehran is a few weeks away from accumulating fissile material that will suffice for a bomb after doubling the amount of enriched uranium in recent months.
Today (Thursday) the most senior Israeli figure arrived near the Iranian border, but this is a visit to strengthen relations with the neighboring country of Iran and cooperation in the field of agriculture.
The Minister of Agriculture, Oded Forer, arrived today in an area called Zangilen in the Nagorno-Karabakh region in southwestern Azerbaijan, only 8 km from the border with Iran and about 120 km from the Iranian central city of Tabriz. He visited the “Smart Village” that was established and examined the assimilation of Israeli technologies that were conducted in the development of the project.
Yesterday, Minister Forer met with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev.
On the Iranian border, Minister Forer said: “I am happy for the opportunity to visit the smart village near the border with Iran and see a lot of Israeli knowledge and technology that builds life. It is wonderful to see how Israeli agriculture breaks boundaries and is a national pride. “
It should be noted that the Iranians do not like, to say the least, the Israeli presence near it, which claims that these are not smart villages but Israeli intelligence bases designed to spy on and harm Iran and have often protested to the Azeri government over the project.
We will emphasize that at this time, Defense Minister Bnei Gantz is on an official visit to the United States, where he met with US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan at the White House.
The Defense Minister raised the issue of Iran’s progress in the nuclear project, and the increase in Iran’s aggressive activity in the region, and stressed the need to strengthen cooperation and preparations for any scenario. In this context, the Minister of Defense said that there is an opportunity to expand the joint work between the defense systems of the two countries, and the framework of activities with additional partnerships in the region.
As is well known, the IDF is conducting a large-scale exercise – “fire chariots” that will last about a month. Chief of Staff Lt. Col. Aviv Kochavi said yesterday that “upon completion of the exercise, the IDF’s level of readiness for war will be at its peak.”
Kochavi clarified that the IDF faces a wide range of arenas and threats. From knife to nucleus, from Jenin to Isfahan. “The IDF works in all arenas to gather intelligence, thwart threats and prepare for war against any arena or in a multi-arena outline.”
Zangilen is located in the southern part of the Nagorno-Karabakh territories that were returned to Azerbaijan at the end of the war with Armenia in 2020.
It should be noted that Azerbaijan announced that it would rebuild the Azeri settlements that were destroyed in the 1990s when the Armenians occupied the territory.
Due to the close and strategic relations between Azerbaijan and Israel, President Aliyev decided that Israel would be Azerbaijan’s main partner in the development of agriculture in Azerbaijan in general and in Nagorno-Karabakh in particular.
In this context, the Smart Village is the flagship project of Azerbaijan, and Azerbaijani citizens are expected to move there in the coming weeks. Israeli companies lead its agricultural activities, including the establishment of cowsheds with Israeli technology.
Minister Forer is the first Israeli minister to visit the Karbach territories after the war. He is also the most senior Israeli figure to arrive so close to the Iranian border.
The visit comes after months of great tension between Azerbaijan and Iran, in which Iran accused Azerbaijan of hosting Israel’s military and intelligence bases. In October 2021, Iran even held a huge military exercise on the Azerbaijani border, with the participation of 40,000 troops, threatening Azerbaijan that it would expel the “Zionists” from it.
In response, during one of President Aliyev’s visits to the Iranian border, he was photographed publicly stroking an Israeli UAV, and vehemently refused to succumb to Iranian threats.
Since then tensions between the countries seem to have subsided, but the hostility to suspicion is still at its peak.
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