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“One country that should be concerned by Azerbaijan’s seeming disenchantment with the West is Israel, which has built a strategic alliance in recent years with Aliyev’s regime, few details of which have been published,” Israeli newspaper Haaretz says hinting that strategic alliance with the oil-rich state may be on shaky ground.

The article points out the tense relations between Azerbaijan and Iran, where Azerbaijan prefers to maintain the strategic alliance with Israel.

Basing upon foreign reports, the newspaper reports that Israel has conducted intelligence operations against Iran from neighbouring Azerbaijan, and sold it weapons systems, including drones and radar. Israel doesn’t disclose details of its arms deals with Azerbaijan, or if the military and electronic equipment it supplies is used only for defence purposes against Iran and the Armenian side or is used to suppress the regime’s internal opposition as well.

The article cites Azerbaijani journalist Khadija Ismayilova who in her interview with Haaretz last year warned the West and Israel from relying on the Aliyev regime to maintain a secular Azerbaijan and block the Islamists.

Western leaders are happy to trade with Aliyev, but less keen to be seen with him in public, the author hints reminding the reader that three months ago President Barack Obama criticised Azerbaijan’s human rights record in a public speech. Aliyev is not content with Azerbaijan’s commercial ties with a West eager for oil and gas – he wants respectability, too, stresses the author pointing out the millions Azerbaijani president spent on lobbying and public relations, including sponsorship of Spanish soccer side Atletico Madrid.

Turning to the arrest of the independent Azerbaijani journalist Khadija Ismayilova, Haaretz reports that it is seen by many in Baku as a breaking point in Aliyev’s attempts to align Azerbaijan with the West.

Until very recently, Azerbaijan saw President Vladimir Putin’s Russia as a hostile force trying to undermine its pro-Western policy. However, Aliyev seems to feel that, after years courting the West and even entertaining the idea that Azerbaijan could join the European Union, it’s time to turn back toward Russia, the newspaper observes.

This kind of conclusion is based on an interview Aliyev gave two weeks ago to a Russian news channel, where he held Kremlin’s position that the United States and European Union are responsible for the rise of ISIS by supporting the rebels fighting the Bashar Assad regime in Syria.