Executive Summary
- The outbreak of the conflict in Iran in March 2026 transformed Azerbaijan’s southern border into an active crisis-management zone, requiring coordination on border control, security measures, and humanitarian logistics.
- Baku’s response has combined operational measures and controlled diplomacy, including evacuation of citizens, facilitation of third-country transit through Azerbaijani territory, humanitarian aid deliveries via Astara, and continued high-level communication with Tehran to prevent escalation.
- Azerbaijan is consolidating a managed proximity approach of strengthening internal security and border resilience while positioning itself as a stable corridor for energy, transport, and humanitarian flows.
Azerbaijan and the rest of the South Caucasus are in a precarious position amid the conflict in Iran. Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov told Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi on March 1 that Azerbaijan’s territory would not be used for strikes against Iran and called for the conflict with the United States and Israel to be resolved through diplomacy (1news.az, March 1). Baku has pursued state-level political signaling designed to maintain bilateral diplomacy. On March 4, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev visited the Iranian Embassy in Baku to offer condolences over the death of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei following Israeli and U.S. airstrikes (President of Azerbaijan, March 4). Four days later, in a telephone conversation with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, Aliyev again conveyed condolences and expressed readiness to provide humanitarian aid to Iran (President of Azerbaijan, March 8). Baku chose to keep the presidential channel open and frame the relationship in terms of crisis management despite severe regional escalation.
Azerbaijan implemented measures to secure its territory and evacuate its citizens. By March 7, the Foreign Ministry said the Cabinet of Ministers’ task force had allowed Azerbaijani citizens in Iran to return unhindered by land, and that about 300 had already crossed back into Azerbaijan (Trend News Agency, March 7). Azerbaijani official coverage also reported that embassies were operating at heightened capacity and that the state was using both the Azerbaijani and Turkish land borders for the exit of Azerbaijani citizens from Iran (Azernews, March 7). Baku has treated the war as a direct consular and border-management emergency requiring centralized state coordination rather than solely an external diplomatic crisis (Report.az, March 6).
Azerbaijan quickly became a transit nexus for third-country evacuations from Iran. Citizens and diplomats from Russia, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, Algeria, Pakistan, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Tajikistan, and Austria fled Iran through Azerbaijani territory in the first days of the crisis (Report.az, March 31). On March 5, the Italian Foreign Ministry announced that the Italian Embassy in Tehran would close and that it would instead operate in Baku (X/@ItalyMFA_int, March 5). On March 10, the Dutch Embassy in Iran also announced that it would temporarily operate from Azerbaijan (Report.az, March 10). On March 11, Russian President Vladimir Putin thanked Aliyev for Azerbaijan’s prompt assistance in evacuating Russian citizens from Iran (President of Azerbaijan, March 11). Azerbaijan’s security role was not limited to self-protection. It also emerged as a functioning regional safety valve during the crisis (Report.az, March 11).
The Astara border crossing transitioned into a managed humanitarian corridor for aid flows into Iran. On March 10, approximately 30 tons of Azerbaijani food, pharmaceuticals, and medical supplies sent on Aliyev’s instructions crossed into Iran (Caliber, March 10). Eighty-two more tons of Azerbaijani aid reportedly crossed through Astara a week later (Report.az, March 18). The Iranian Red Crescent Society described Azerbaijan as one of the first countries to send humanitarian aid and said other states were also channeling assistance to Iran via Azerbaijan (APA, March 23). This turned Azerbaijan from a passive neighbor into a hub between Iran and outside actors.
Azerbaijan expanded the Astara corridor’s function by enabling third-country humanitarian shipments to Iran. A Russian Emergencies Ministry Il-76 carrying over 13 tons of humanitarian cargo landed in Lankaran on March 12, after which the supplies were moved onward to Iran through Astara (Azertag, March 12). Azerbaijani media outlet Report also later documented additional Russian aid convoys moving to Iran via Azerbaijani territory (Report.az, March 27). Baku tightly organized transport, customs, and border access so that Azerbaijani territory could serve as a controlled corridor rather than a destabilized frontier (Caliber, March 31).
Baku has sustained diplomatic channels with Tehran despite strained relations (see EDM, March 11). On March 30, Bayramov and Araghchi held another phone call, emphasizing the importance of diplomatic efforts to end the conflict in the region (Azertag, March 30). Azerbaijani official behavior after the outbreak of war suggests that Baku’s method was not simply “neutrality,” but a method to keep the border functioning, preventing spillover, refusing participation in military action against Iran, preserving state-to-state communication, and using Azerbaijan’s geography for evacuation and aid under strict state control (Caliber, March 29).
Azerbaijan would not enter the conflict, but it would actively manage its consequences. Azerbaijan’s approach to security management during the war has thus far included containment at the border, controlled diplomacy with Tehran, and conversion of Azerbaijani territory into a regulated evacuation and humanitarian corridor (Liberum, March 14). Rather than explicitly aligning with any side or escalating tensions, Baku has acted as a functional stabilizer by securing its borders, evacuating civilians, enabling the safe transit of foreign nationals, and channeling humanitarian aid into Iran through controlled border crossings (AIR Center, March 16).
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