Expert: India underestimates Azerbaijan's importance, overestimates Armenia

India's decision to continue to arm Armenia suggests that other factors - aside from making a bit of money at the expense of Armenian taxpayers—are playing decisive roles in this aspect of Indian strategic thinking, Prof. Damjan Krnjević Mišković, Director for Policy Research and Analysis at ADA University’s Institute for Development and Diplomacy, told Report.

"I think India is overestimating the geopolitical importance of Armenia and underestimating the geopolitical and geo-economic importance of Azerbaijan," the expert said.

"Given India’s emphasis on the importance of the rule of law in international relations, on the one hand, and its sophisticated understanding of global affairs, on the other hand, its decision to continue to arm Armenia suggests that other factors—aside from making a bit of money at the expense of Armenian taxpayers—are playing decisive roles in this aspect of Indian strategic thinking," he said.

This is a complicated matter that needs to be put in its proper strategic context, the expert added.

"On the one hand, Azerbaijan has a genuine interest in expanding the scale and scope of its bilateral relationship with India. After all, the country is one of the world’s major powers, its geopolitical and geo-economic engagement is increasing rapidly, it is one of the co-founders and traditional leaders of the Non-Aligned Movement, and so on. When India’s new ambassador presented his credentials to President Aliyev in May 2023, he emphasized that India is a top-five trade partner of Azerbaijan, that last year there was a trade turnover surge of 155 percent, and that plans are underway to expand the economic relationship further," the expert said.

"On the other hand, India continues to have an adversarial relationship with Pakistan, and Azerbaijan and Pakistan have what both countries call a ‘brotherly’ relationship," he noted.

The expert recalled that Pakistan was one of the first countries to recognize Azerbaijan’s independence, it has never diplomatically recognized Armenia, and its active support prior to and during the Second Karabakh War is very well known.

"So is Azerbaijan’s position on the Kashmir dispute. Public sentiment in Azerbaijan for Pakistan is exceptionally high," Krnjević said.

However, the reminded that the bilateral security cooperation relationship between Armenia and India goes back to at least 2011, and military-technical cooperation goes back to at least 2017.

"There have been unconfirmed reports that Armenia has also bought various other armaments from India in the past few years, including artillery, drones, anti-tank weapons, missiles, and ammunition."

"And, so, this is the context in which we need to understand the recent reports indicating that a shipment of Indian weapons was made via Iran’s Bandar Abbas port and then transported overland to the Nurduz border crossing point," Krnjević said.

He emphasized that all this reinforces Baku’s suspicion that Yerevan is contemplating the possibility that it may not end up signing a peace treaty, and so is preparing itself for the resumption of hostilities. And this, in turn, speaks to the fact that both India and Iran are the two countries that Armenia now sees as security providers, in addition to Russia.

"All this is clearly contributing to Armenia’s re-militarization and to an attempt to somehow encircle Azerbaijan, and in that sense could be seen as an act of escalation. And this will not make it any easier to establish sustainable peace and security in the region," he said.

India’s choice to keep strengthening Armenia’s military hand is unlikely to be interpreted by Brussels and Washington as helpful to the Baku-Yerevan peace process that they are facilitating and supporting, Krnjević said.

Prof. Damjan Krnjević Mišković holds an academic appointment as a Professor of Practice at ADA University. He previously served as a senior adviser to the president and foreign minister of Serbia as well as to the president of the UN General Assembly (2004-2012).