India Bars Baku, Pakistan Backs Yerevan

Rahim Ullah Tajik

Islamabad: The 2025 Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Tianjin underscored how Eurasian diplomacy is no longer confined to routine discussions but has become a battleground for strategic maneuvering.

What unfolded inside the Tianjin Convention and Exhibition Center reflected not just institutional debates but the tectonic realignment of South and Central Asian politics.

India blocked Azerbaijan’s bid for full SCO membership, while Pakistan, traditionally a staunch ally of Baku, quietly established diplomatic relations with Armenia. These actions were far more than symbolic gestures—they were calculated moves that recalibrated alliances and weaponized multilateral platforms to redraw influence across Eurasia.

India’s decision to veto Azerbaijan’s SCO membership was deliberate and politically charged. The immediate trigger was Azerbaijan’s vocal support for Pakistan during Operation Sindoor, India’s military retaliation after the Pahalgam terror attack, and Pakistan’s counterstrike, Operation Marka-e-Haq.

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Baku openly condemned India’s actions and backed Pakistan in global forums, including the United Nations. By blocking Azerbaijan, New Delhi signaled that antagonism would not go unanswered. It demonstrated how India has begun leveraging institutional power within multilateral blocs.

Historically, India has sought to counter hostile narratives diplomatically, but this act elevated its role to that of a gatekeeper in the SCO—a grouping once shaped primarily by China and Russia, now increasingly influenced by India’s assertiveness.

If India’s move was exclusionary, Pakistan’s was adaptive. Islamabad announced the establishment of formal diplomatic ties with Armenia, ending decades of non-recognition rooted in its alignment with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh. The announcement, delivered with little fanfare during the SCO summit, nevertheless carried strategic weight.

Contrary to speculation, Pakistan did not attempt to block Armenia’s SCO membership. Instead, it chose to open a new diplomatic channel, signaling pragmatism and a shift from its longstanding Turkey–Azerbaijan-centric posture.

For Islamabad, this move may reflect both a desire to diversify alliances and a calculated response to India’s growing footprint in Eurasian affairs. Armenia’s foreign ministry acknowledged the step but avoided commenting on its broader implications, leaving observers to interpret the development as a quiet but deliberate recalibration.

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India and Armenia, though not treaty allies, have cultivated a growing strategic partnership since the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war. When Russia adopted a passive stance amid Azerbaijan’s military campaign, Armenia turned to India for defense support.

New Delhi responded by supplying Pinaka multi-barrel rocket launchers, Swathi weapon-locating radars, and Akash air defense systems. This defense cooperation has since evolved into a broader diplomatic alignment. Armenia has consistently supported India’s positions in international forums, particularly when countering the Pakistan–Azerbaijan–Turkey trilateral narrative.

For its part, India endorses Armenia’s Crossroads of Peace initiative and sees Yerevan as a strategic partner in the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC)—a critical route linking India to Europe through Iran and the Caucasus, bypassing Pakistan entirely.

This convergence demonstrates how defense collaboration can mature into political synergy, particularly when united against shared

These shifts unfold against the backdrop of Azerbaijan and Armenia’s long-standing conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, a territory internationally recognized as Azerbaijani but historically dominated by ethnic Armenians.

The conflict has gone through several violent stages: between 1991 and 1994, Armenia occupied Karabakh and surrounding districts; in 2016 and 2020, Azerbaijan launched offensives, regaining significant territory; and in 2023, Azerbaijan’s final military operation brought all of Karabakh under its control.

In August 2025, the two countries signed a US-brokered peace deal under Donald Trump’s mediation, pledging mutual recognition of borders and non-aggression. By September 2025, the OSCE Minsk Group—long the mediator of the dispute—was formally dissolved. Still, unresolved questions remain.

Border demarcation, refugee resettlement, and the constitutional recognition of new territorial realities remain contentious, leaving the peace fragile and open to external influence.

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Originally designed as a security bloc to counterbalance Western influence, the SCO has increasingly become a stage for South Asian power projection. India’s veto of Azerbaijan and Pakistan’s outreach to Armenia are part of a broader pattern of using multilateral platforms as instruments of retaliation, signaling, and alliance-building.

For India, the SCO is a venue to consolidate its image as a regional leader, assert its gatekeeping role, and counter adversarial alignments. For Pakistan, it is a platform to demonstrate flexibility, pragmatism, and readiness to adapt alliances to a rapidly evolving geopolitical environment.

The 2025 SCO summit revealed that the Caucasus is no longer a distant frontier for South Asia—it has become a mirror reflecting its rivalries, ambitions, and recalibrations. India’s blockade of Azerbaijan and Pakistan’s recognition of Armenia are not isolated moves but deliberate maneuvers on a Eurasian chessboard where every piece matters.

The summit did not merely redraw diplomatic lines; it exposed the contours of a new Eurasian order. As the pieces move, the game remains open-ended but the message is clear: in this arena of shifting alliances, every move counts.

Rahim Ullah Tajik is an MPhil scholar in IR at the National Defence University, Islamabad, with research interests in contemporary global and regional security dynamics. He can be reached at rahimullah15303@gmail.com.

The article is the writer’s opinion, it may or may not adhere to the organization’s editorial policy.