Israel's Foreign Minister Eli Cohen will fly from Azerbaijan to Turkmenistan on Wednesday night, Ednews reports citing the Israeli MFA.
Cohen will inaugurate Israel’s embassy in the Turkmen capital Ashgabat, a mere 15 miles from Iran’s northeast border. The office will be Israel’s closest embassy to its archenemy Iran.
Cohen will meet on Thursday with Turkmen President Serdar Berdimuhamedov and Foreign Minister Rashid Meredov, as well as the agriculture minister and Jewish community.
Note that this is the first Israeli minister to visit the Central Asian state in nearly three decades. Then-foreign minister Shimon Peres visited the oil-rich dictatorship in 1994, three years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, which had ruled the area.