Azerbaijan, 2023 — dissident coup conspiracy
Event Summary
This entry is coded 6 April 2023, corresponding to the April 2023 arrests over an alleged Iran-linked coup plot against the government of President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan. On Thursday 6 April 2023, Azerbaijan announced it had arrested six Azerbaijani nationals whom it said were recruited by Iranian secret services to destabilize the situation in the country and were plotting a coup, in a joint statement by the interior ministry, state security service, and prosecutor-general's office. The arrests came amid sharply deteriorating relations between Azerbaijan and Iran.
Azerbaijan is a close ally of Iran's regional rival Turkey and holds close ties with Israel, a major arms supplier, and tensions had spiked after a January 2023 gun attack on Azerbaijan's embassy in Tehran that killed a diplomat, an attack Baku blamed on Iran. The 6 April 2023 coding matches the announcement of the arrests. This case is distinct from the separate 2025 coup allegations in Azerbaijan centered on former presidential aide Ramiz Mehdiyev.
Researched Details
Researched
Independent research, added record by record. Hover any label for what it means.
Sources
Editorial Note
Cross-Reference
Only one dataset carries it. One of the three reference datasets we check against carries this event; the others do not list it. That is not a contradiction — the datasets cover different periods and use different thresholds — but it means the record has had less outside corroboration.
Identifiers for finding this same event in the other datasets:
- Cline Center id
37304062023
How the match is made is described in crossref-report.md.
Outcome and Target
Coup Atlas research identifies the target as: Aliyev's government said it arrested Iran-linked suspects plotting a coup.
Baseline coding: Plot discovered and disrupted before execution. Recorded leader fate: remained in office; not physically harmed. The baseline file does not name individual targets; researched names are kept in a separate layer.
Baseline Dataset Citation
Baseline Source-Document Entries
Times of Israel
The National News
Arab News
This is the citation trail carried by the baseline dataset, grouped by outlet and rejoined from the line-wrapped original. Coup Atlas has not independently re-checked every document; read the original before citing a specific claim. URLs the import damaged beyond safe repair are shown as plain text and listed in citations-report.md. How this list is built →