An extraordinary diplomatic configuration unfolded in Baku on Thursday as Israeli President Isaac Herzog took part in the CICA (Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia) summit, seated alongside delegations from states that maintain no formal diplomatic relations with Israel—including Iran, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Iraq. Beyond the remarkable composition of the summit hall, the way the Israeli president traveled to Baku drew widespread attention after he crossed Turkish airspace unhindered, despite Ankara’s sweeping ban on Israeli government flights.
The summit convened as part of an Asian multinational forum dedicated to regional security, cross-border cooperation, and multilateral confidence-building. Seated alongside Herzog were senior delegates from Russia, China, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain, as well as the Emir of Qatar and Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan. The high-profile gathering stood out sharply against ongoing regional geopolitical and military tensions, marked by the presence of an Iranian representative in the same hall as Israel’s head of state.
Yet the operational drama began well before the president touched down in Baku. According to a report by Middle East Eye, Herzog reached Azerbaijan on a scheduled commercial flight operated by Azerbaijan Airlines (AZAL), crossing straight through Turkish airspace. Aviation tracking data from Flightradar24 identified the journey as flight J222 from Ben Gurion Airport to Baku, serviced by a Boeing 787 Dreamliner.
Since 2024, Ankara has enforced a flight ban prohibiting official Israeli government aircraft from entering Turkish skies; however, this restriction does not apply to civilian commercial airliners. A scheduled commercial flight allowed Herzog to fly a direct route rather than take an arduous, circuitous detour over Greece, Bulgaria, and the Black Sea.
A Turkish official told Middle East Eye that Baku did not alert Ankara that the Israeli head of state was aboard the civilian aircraft. “Naturally, Turkey cannot demand passenger manifests for every commercial airliner that crosses its sovereign airspace,” the official noted. The Israeli President’s Office declined to comment on the flight’s logistics. According to reports, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan skipped the Baku summit entirely and dispatched Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan instead. However, no formal confirmation linked Erdogan’s absence to Herzog’s attendance.
Social media observers highlighted an additional layer of symbolism: the AZAL Dreamliner Herzog flew on bears the name “Shusha,” commemorating the strategic city central to the Azerbaijan-Armenia conflict and the namesake of the 2021 Shusha Declaration allied pact between Baku and Ankara. While online commentators framed this as subtle diplomatic irony directed at Ankara, no official statement said the airframe was chosen for symbolic reasons.
During his visit to Azerbaijan, Herzog met with President Ilham Aliyev and toured the Israeli Embassy in Baku to observe the opening of overseas balloting for the upcoming 26th Knesset elections. “This is an immensely meaningful moment in my state visit here in Azerbaijan,” Herzog remarked at the embassy. “I have the privilege of watching the democratic electoral process begin and observing how polling actually unfolds across Israel’s missions abroad.”
Addressing the Israeli public ahead of election day, the president concluded: “These are crucial elections following an extraordinarily difficult period for the State of Israel. My central message to all Israeli citizens is simple: elections are not a civil war.”