Opinion | The Story Of '3 Brothers' And Why Azerbaijan Is Cheering For Pakistan

One has heard of friends with benefits. But in India's case, there are also antagonists with benefits. We are talking about Azerbaijan and Turkey - two countries whose role in the latest conflict between India and Pakistan has come into focus. While Turkey has been the centre of attention for the Turkish-made drones that Pakistan was found to be using, the Azerbaijan and the South Caucasian angle merits greater focus.

According to data by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), India was the third-largest destination for Azerbaijan's crude oil in 2023, accounting for 7.6% of its total crude oil export worth $1.227 billion. "India's bilateral trade with Azerbaijan has increased substantially from around $50 million in 2005 to $1.435 billion in 2023, with India becoming Azerbaijan's seventh-largest trading partner. During the year, India's imports from Azerbaijan were $1.235 billion and exports were $ 201 million," a bilateral brief states. Hence, based on these estimates, Azerbaijan stands to gain far more from its bilateral engagement with India than vice-versa. So, what explains Baku's antagonism since India began its Operation Sindoor?

'In Solidarity'

Curiously, a statement from the country's foreign affairs ministry condemned India's military strikes against Pakistan, conducted in response to the terrorist attack in Pahalgam on April 22. "We condemn the military attacks on the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, which have resulted in the deaths and injuries of several civilians. In solidarity with the people of Pakistan, we extend our condolences to the families of the innocent victims and wish a speedy recovery to the injured."

Not only did Azerbaijan express its support for Pakistan, but its state-monitored media has been spewing venom at India since the latter's military response. Here are a few samples: Vyugar Vyugarly, editor-in-chief of Idman TV, authored a piece for Caliber - a publication close to the country's defence ministry - in which he presented a falsified, inaccurate history of the genesis of the Kashmir conflict. "Unsurprisingly, the fascist symbol of the Swastika could have been borrowed only from Indian culture," he wrote in the article. In the same article, he goes on to level allegations of 'water terrorism' being perpetrated by India, insinuating that India engineered the Pahalgam attacks as a pretext to do away with the Indus Waters Treaty. In another piece in the same publication, political analyst and head of the South Caucasus Research Center, Farhad Mammadov, said, "The fascist-leaning regime of Prime Minister Modi is consolidating power within the country, and for a rising power, war becomes a key element in its transition into the top tier of global states."

The Azeri Version Of The Conflict

There is yet another gem from the same site: "India, on the other hand, despite massive investments in its defence sector, found itself in an extremely uncomfortable, even humiliating position. The loss of combat aircraft, the blow to the prestige of its air force, and the failure of its proclaimed strategy to deter Pakistan have all cast serious doubt on New Delhi's entire defence planning framework for the years ahead."

The Azerbaijan media has also been peddling fake news about the conflict over the past three days, parroting the official Pakistani version of the conflict, without even a mention of the official Indian version, if only for the sake of journalistic integrity. The version being driven by Azeri analysts and columnists is that India attacked civilian sites in Pakistan and, as a result, Pakistan responded to the provocation and aggression with its Operation Bunyan-ul-Marsoos. 

Amidst all this, one must remember that the Azerbaijan media is state-controlled. 

The History Of India-Azerbaijan Ties

For a country already benefiting from its relations with India, Azerbaijan's response to Operation Sindoor has been perplexing. For years after its emergence as a sovereign state, Azerbaijan kept aloof from India. Instead, it established diplomatic relations with Pakistan and quickly got close to it. However, this need not have been an impediment to building good ties with India. After all, even fellow CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) and culturally close Turkic states, such as Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, enjoy close relations with Pakistan, but that did not did not stop them from developing mutually beneficial ties with India too.

India established diplomatic relations with Azerbaijan in February 1992, yet the Indian diplomatic mission in Baku was opened only in March 1999. Azerbaijan took much longer to open its diplomatic mission in Delhi - in 2004. It took even longer to appoint an Ambassador. Twenty years later, there have been no major high-profile official bilateral visits between the two sides at the level of heads of state or government.

Armenia, The Thorn In The Flesh

Strangely, as trade and tourism between the two countries began to take off, indifference turned to antagonism. At the heart of this lie India's relations with Armenia, Azerbaijan's arch-rival. The 2020 war between the two South Caucasian nations over the contested territory of Nagorno-Karabakh - which lies geographically within the borders of Azerbaijan but has an ethnic Armenian population - changed the equation. With military help and support from Turkey, Azerbaijan wrested the conclave after almost two decades of attempts. In this war, not only did Pakistan unequivocally support Azerbaijan, but reports suggest that its mercenaries fought for Azerbaijan.

Post Baku's victory, Azerbaijan, Pakistan, and Turkey forged a closer bloc as 'Three Brothers'. They also promised to support each other over their respective positions on Karabakh, Kashmir, and Northern Cyprus. No doubt, during Operation Sindoor, Baku, which had condemned the Pahalgam terror attacks earlier, saw itself as returning the favour it had received from Islamabad in 2020. No doubt also that Azerbaijan saw in Pakistan a parallel with its own war over Karabakh. India, though, unlike Azerbaijan now, had taken a neutral stand in that war.

By the time the Nagorno-Karabakh war began in 2020, India had already inked its first agreement with Armenia for the delivery of Swathi weapon locating radars. Soon, tensions began in Baku. Since then, India has increased sales of military hardware to Armenia, which include Pinaka multi-barrel rocket launchers and the Akash-1S missile defence system. Simultaneously, Baku has continued arms purchases from both Turkey and Pakistan, but it has been upping the ante about Armenia's arms buys from India.

'We Won't Sit And Wait'

Exactly a year ago, the Azeri President, Ilham Aliyev, had asked India to stay away from supplying defence equipment to Armenia. Citing concerns over Azerbaijan's national security, Aliyev had said, "It is a matter of our national security. We cannot sit and wait, seeing how France, India, and Greece are weaponising Armenia against us and doing it openly, demonstratively." These warnings and alarms have continued to plague the Azerbaijan strategic community.

But here's the paradox: in every opinion or analytical piece, Azerbaijan's analysts do not refrain from trashing India's defence products. So, then, why the angst and the fear-mongering? Why would supposedly 'ineffective' defence systems rattle a country that claims it is far wealthier, and militarily superior? Here, we're not even raising the embarrassing question about why Azerbaijan itself had late last year evinced interest in procuring arms from India. 

Why Akash Missiles Have Raised Alarm

Moreover, suspicion about Yerevan's motives in its defence deals with India is imputed even to defensive systems like the Akash-1S. "The fact that Armenia is investing heavily in a system that India itself is preparing to replace raises strategic questions about both the efficacy of the Akash-1S and the motives behind Yerevan's procurement," said a piece in Azernews yesterday as news came in that Armenia was preparing to receive the second batch of the Akash-1S surface-to-air missile systems from India soon. The irony here is that the article quotes Retired Brigadier General Yücel Karauz, an ex-Turkish military attache who had been posted in Baku, as saying that the procurement sends a "problematic signal during sensitive peace talks". Says Karauz, "It [the Akash-1S system] reinforces and strengthens the military balance not in an offensive sense but in a defensive sense, in terms of defending its country. This situation, of course, renders the peace process carried out with Azerbaijan ineffective with this and similar armament activities." But, the question is, under exactly what conditions would a 'defence' system - and not an 'offensive' one, as Karauz himself stresses - installed by Armenia "render the peace process" ineffective?

There's also the fact that Azerbaijan has for long been demanding the right of passage to its landlocked Nakhchivan exclave, separated from it by Armenian territory. Could it then be that Azerbaijan is preparing for another confrontation with its neighbour and is dismayed at the weapons exports from India?

Whatever the reasons, the popular Azeri frustration with India is clear as day.

(The author is a journalist and political analyst)

Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author