Despite its growing rapprochement with Pakistan, Azerbaijan is careful not to do so at the expense of the country’s ties with India, as Azerbaijan and India are invested in working together despite “several geopolitical differences”.

However, India refrained from inviting Azerbaijan to the BRICS summit and also prevented India and Bhutan from reportedly signing a statement expressing NAM countries with Azerbaijan after radical Shia groups on 4 , Azerbaijan, Mahammad Mammadov said in a statement for the magazine New Eastern Europe.

The growing rift between the two countries primarily propagated the diplomatic kinship in the Nagorno-Karabakh and Kashmir conflicts

In addition, India chose to provide more support to Armenia while maintaining its “principle position” on the situation in Karabakh, as the Indian Foreign Ministry, citing Azerbaijan, urged the aggressor side to cease hostilities immediately, New Eastern Europe magazine reported.

In addition, military relations between the Azerbaijani and Pakistani partnership have developed well in terms of joint military exercises and military education programs.

But before long, the war between Russia and Ukraine and Western sanctions against Russia opened up new opportunities for Azerbaijan and India to put differences aside and work together in mutually beneficial areas, as India became Azerbaijan’s fourth-biggest export partner in the first six months of 2022, News Eastern Europe reported, citing Mammadov

In recent times, China is increasingly trying to find links with Europe and the Middle East by bypassing Russia, escalating tensions in the South Caucasus region, particularly in Azerbaijan, with Pakistan’s support.

China has been expanding its BRI projects for many years. Beijing has been building transport routes to Europe that bypass Russia for the past ten years.

The South Caucasus region acts as a link between the Middle East, China, Russia and Europe and is therefore of great strategic importance.

Second, China’s strength is building connectivity in the region.

China’s ploy to expand its reach in Azerbaijan seemed highly likely as it comes amid the Azerbaijani government investigation into a secret military flight headed from Macau, China, to Yerevan, Armenia, Portal Plus reported.

(Only the headline and image of this report may have been edited by Business Standard contributors; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)