Amid rising tensions around Iran, scenarios that could unfold in the event of large-scale military escalation by the United States are being discussed with increasing frequency. These assessments have long moved beyond expert circles and are now voiced at the level of official statements, parliamentary debates, and regional media. In this context, a statement made in the Milli Majlis was particularly telling: Azerbaijan’s state bodies and security services are closely monitoring developments in Iran and are preparing in advance for possible consequences.
This position reflects a fundamentally important principle: Baku does not intend to react after the fact, but seeks to understand the spectrum of risks and potential outcomes in advance. First and foremost, this concerns humanitarian threats. In Iran’s north-western regions, directly adjacent to Azerbaijan’s border, millions of ethnic Azerbaijanis reside. A sharp deterioration of the situation—due to hostilities, strikes on infrastructure, or a general collapse of governance—could trigger attempts at mass population movement toward Azerbaijan.
Even with formally closed land borders, it is virtually impossible to fully isolate oneself from such a scenario. If tens or hundreds of thousands of people linked to Azerbaijan by shared history, language, and culture were to require assistance, the room for rigid and purely formal decisions would be extremely limited. This is precisely why discussion of potential humanitarian scenarios is not fear-mongering, but an effort to soberly assess reality and prepare in advance for a possible crisis.
At the same time, the focus is not so much on the mass acceptance of refugees as on preventive forms of humanitarian support. Azerbaijan already has relevant experience—from supplying electrical equipment and medicines to providing assistance through international humanitarian mechanisms, as was the case with Ukraine. In the Iranian direction, such measures could include deliveries of food, medicines, tents, warm clothing, blankets, and generators.
A separate critical risk is associated with potential disruptions to electricity supply. Damage to power plants, substations, or transmission lines in a conflict could lead to hospital shutdowns, water supply failures, and a sharp deterioration of sanitary conditions. In the winter months, especially in Iran’s mountainous and north-western areas, such consequences could become acute. In this context, mobile energy sources and fuel become not auxiliary, but core elements of humanitarian assistance.
However, the humanitarian dimension of the crisis is inseparable from its diplomatic and political context. At the end of January, President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev held a telephone conversation with President of the Islamic Republic of Iran Masoud Pezeshkian, assuring his Iranian counterpart that Baku opposes military action against its friendly neighbor. This call was not merely an act of diplomatic courtesy, but a deliberate political signal.
During this period, Tehran was actively seeking support and understanding from neighboring states, building diplomatic configurations in anticipation of further escalation. Notably, almost simultaneously, Russian President Vladimir Putin received Iran’s Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council Ali Larijani in Moscow, while Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met in Istanbul with Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi. In parallel, Türkiye, Egypt, and Qatar were making efforts to organize contacts between U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian representatives. The region had effectively reached a crossroads: either a diplomatic deal or a military strike.
Aliyev’s phone call with Pezeshkian fits into this logic as a gesture of respect toward the Iranian state and people at a moment of historical turbulence, and as a signal of Baku’s unwillingness to play on the side of escalation. The coincidence of dates was also symbolic: on February 1, 46 years marked the formation of Iran’s theocratic system—from the return of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to Tehran in 1979. The state structure created then, despite the loss of its revolutionary momentum, remains resilient.
Today, Iran is governed by a second generation of elites—not the romantics of the revolution, but politicians shaped by the war with Iraq and the harsh experience of the 1980s. Masoud Pezeshkian belongs to this generation. Historical practice shows that it is precisely at this stage that rigid ideological systems most often face the need for limited adaptation or liberalization. The question is only the form and depth of this process—there are no universal recipes.
At the same time, official Baku consistently adheres to the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of its neighbors. While not sharing Iran’s political model, Azerbaijan respects the choice of the Islamic Republic and maintains a pragmatic distance. Over the years, stable cross-border ties among small businesses and working channels of interagency cooperation have formed. Azerbaijanis on both sides of the Araz River feel cultural and human kinship and are not inclined toward confrontational perceptions of one another.
A separate dimension of the crisis is infrastructural and transport-related. A new configuration has emerged around the Zangezur corridor that until recently seemed unlikely. The Iranian factor in this system can play a stabilizing role, reducing uncertainties in communications with the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic. Already today, about 300 trucks pass daily through the Julfa customs checkpoint, including transit shipments along the route “from Azerbaijan to Azerbaijan.” After the launch of the Kalale–Agbend crossing, capacity could increase to 1,300 vehicles per day, objectively strengthening the regional economy.
Another artery is taking shape across the Araz along the Goradiz–Jabrayil–Zangilan–Agbend direction. Moreover, an Iranian road alternative to the so-called “Trump route” could become operational faster than the railway line through Armenia. At the same time, this is precisely where strategic risks begin to grow.
Against the backdrop of a possible confrontation with the United States, Tehran is looking ever more closely at the Armenian segment of the corridor, which is gradually transforming from a regional infrastructure project into a geopolitical asset with U.S. involvement. For Iran, this would mean an unprecedentedly close U.S. presence at its land borders. Notably, most of these initiatives are unfolding not on Azerbaijani territory, but in Armenia, which is politically close to Tehran.
As a result, Baku faces a complex strategic dilemma. On the one hand, Azerbaijan’s strengthening as a “middle power” opens new economic opportunities in cooperation with the United States and Israel—from Eastern Mediterranean energy projects to access to technologies, investments, and capital. On the other hand, the risk of militarizing infrastructure projects increases, along with the danger of turning the region into a staging ground for external confrontation.
The key question for Azerbaijan is how to separate economic benefits from military risks—how to accept investments and technologies without being drawn, along with the entire region, into someone else’s confrontation. In this sense, Baku’s cautious line—a combination of humanitarian readiness, diplomatic balance, and pragmatic calculation—appears not as an expression of anxiety, but as an attempt to preserve strategic autonomy amid growing turbulence.
It is no coincidence that an important positive signal remains the agreement between the United States and Iran to continue negotiations. Preventing war at the diplomatic stage is always cheaper and more humane than dealing with its consequences. The experience of Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan clearly shows that humanitarian catastrophes and long-term instability become the price of failed political decisions. That is why interest in de-escalation today is shared not only by the negotiating parties, but by all states in the region for which Iran is not an abstract point on the map, but an immediate neighbor.
