The decision to suspend ADS’s export license came after reports earlier this month that ADS members, who demonstrated the Aeronautics Defense Orbiter 1K drone in Baku, had been asked by their Azeri hosts to use it to deliver an explosive payload on an Armenian military position in Azerbaijan’s breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region, The Jerusalem Post said.
After the ADS specialists operating the drone refused to use it against the Armenian position, their senior colleagues took over, operating the drone themselves.
As a result of the suspension, the Israeli firm will lose around $20 million in the next two years as it is prevented from continuing exports to Azerbaijan, the newspaper wrote.
Relations between Baku and Yerevan have been strained due to the conflict in the breakaway Karabakh region.
The conflict in Azerbaijan's Armenian-dominated Nagorno-Karabakh began in 1988, when the autonomous region sought to secede from the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic, before proclaiming independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
The violence in Nagorno-Karabakh escalated on April 2 last year. Baku and Yerevan accused each other of provoking hostilities that led to multiple deaths on each side.
A cease-fire was agreed on several days later on April 5, yet hostilities continue.
