By Seymur Mammadov
Armenia’s military aggression and its occupation of 20 percent of Azerbaijan’s territories, including Nagorno-Karabakh, has led some countries to break off relations with Yerevan in solidarity with official Baku.
One of the strongest states in the world that sharply condemned Armenia’s aggressive policy towards Azerbaijan and broke off diplomatic relations with it was Pakistan.
Islamabad uniquely stated that it does not and will not recognize a state like Armenia, until it (Armenia) leaves occupied territories of Azerbaijan.
Under these conditions, brotherly Pakistan began to provide all-round and comprehensive military assistance to Azerbaijan.
Baku began to purchase the most modern military equipment from Islamabad, which significantly exceeded the combat effectiveness and defense power of the Azerbaijani army. In this regard, it should be noted that military cooperation with Pakistan, the purchase of the most modern equipment from Islamabad, among other things, played an important role in the actual superiority and predominance of the Azerbaijani army over the Armenian and the transformation of the Azerbaijani armed forces into one of the strongest in the CIS.
Cooperation in all areas between Baku and Islamabad, as well as friendly relations between the peoples of Azerbaijan and Pakistan is evident. In addition, as indicated, Islamabad does not recognize the Armenian state.
Against this background, Yerevan is making attempts to “strengthen” relations with New Delhi. Not so long ago it became known that India entered into a $ 40 million defense agreement to supply four locally produced Swathi radars to Armenia as cost price. It seems to the leadership of the Armenian state that its attempts to establish and deepen relations with India will be a worthy “response” to fraternal and allied relations between Baku and Islamabad. Such intentions and plans, as well as statements in this regard, are undoubtedly ridiculous, since the fraternal allied relations between Azerbaijan and Pakistan are not directed against a third party. But Armenia is trying to enlist the support of India in military-technical cooperation, using the India not only against Azerbaijan, but also against Turkey. The Indian media openly support Yerevan’s position on the so-called “Armenian genocide” allegedly perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire during the First World War.
I wonder why is Armenia isolated from all infrastructure projects in the region attractive to India?
India’s only interest in Armenia is its membership in the Eurasian Economic Union. In India is convinced that the partnership with the EAEU is a kind of platform for marketing their goods. In practice, trade and economic relations between the two countries do not work today. The reason is that Armenia has nothing to offer for the large market of India. Armenia completely isolated itself from all regional transport and energy projects and there is no domestic production.
India should not expect much from Armenia in military-technical cooperation for one simple reason – the military budget of Azerbaijan is equal to the entire budget of Armenia. The state of the Armenian economy is deteriorating from year to year, social discontent is growing, the actions of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, who came to power, do not meet the expectations of the population, the election promises of the Armenian Prime Minister have not been fulfilled, turbulence in the political life of Armenia is still ongoing. With such Armenia, India wants to develop military-technical cooperation?
Today, Pakistan has very good relations with Azerbaijan, but there is no diplomatic relations with Armenia at all, therefore, it is not surprising that Islamabad provides military assistance to Baku, and not to Yerevan.
Unlike Pakistan, India has diplomatic relations with both Azerbaijan and Armenia, but India is arming one of the parties to the conflict, knowing that the situation in the conflict zone is far from calm and that conflict can escalate at any time.
Of course, it is also worth noting that there is no particular zeal from India for developing relations with petty Armenia, which has absolutely no resources. Returning to the above, it should be added that Armenia applied for military cooperation with India only after Azerbaijan and Pakistan established bilateral partnerships. As it seems to the leadership of Armenia, it thereby allegedly “intimidates” Azerbaijan. It seems to Yerevan that its cooperation with New Delhi will demonstrate to Baku that Armenia has such a strong state as India, after which Baku will no longer have the desire to resort to force in relations with Armenia.
Such hopes, except as delirium, of course, cannot be called. Allegations of any allied relations between Armenia and India are also nonsense. What Yerevan has already hurried to call cooperation between Armenia and India, is in fact a simple trade: you give us money – we give you goods. So for such a military-political and economic giant as India, Armenia is not able to present any real significance from the point of view of military-economic cooperation: neither territorially, nor according to any economic data.
Another important fact is the intention of Armenia to quarrel India with Azerbaijan. Armenian foreign policy, now aimed at India, intends to drive a wedge into relations between Baku and New Delhi. The Armenians are trying to adjust the public and political consciousness of India to the idea that Azerbaijan pursues a pro-Pakistani and, therefore, anti-Indian policy.
New Delhi, of course, does not react to such attempts in any way, rightly seeing the banal intention behind such statements to quarrel him with Baku. In addition, Baku does not even consider it necessary to somehow react to such attempts by the Armenian propaganda. The reason for such indifference in Baku is based on unconditional confidence in its military superiority over Armenia. In addition, if Armenia is only now trying to establish some kind of trade deal with India, then Azerbaijan has long been cooperating with fraternal Pakistan in the military sphere.
Among other things, Azerbaijan and Pakistan are united by a similarity of problems. The fact is that, in essence, the Karabakh and Kashmir issues have much in common. For example, the entire Azerbaijani population was expelled from Nagorno-Karabakh, subsequently occupied by Armenia, many were killed. Today the same process is going on in Kashmir. Unfortunately, the uncertainty in resolving the two conflicts is still ongoing, and the world community is not taking any steps to resolve them.
