Commander Subhasish Sarangi Writes :
The South Caucasus region primarily consists of three nations – Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. Turkey, which is adjacent to this region, has adversarial relations with Greece, Armenia, and Cyprus. Strained relations with Greece can be traced to 1832 when Greece won its independence from the Ottoman Empire, and have led to four wars. Relations with Armenia have been defined by the horrific killing of Armenians, between 1914 and 1923, which Turkey refuses to recognise as genocide. Turkey occupied northern Cyprus in 1974, and declared it as a separate nation but the world does not recognize it.
In the course of his visit to Armenia, Vice President of India, Hamid Ansari, laid a wreath at the Armenian Genocide Memorial and visited the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute on 25 April 2017. It coincided with the State Visit of the President of Cyprus, Nicos Anastasiades, to India from 25 April to 29 April 2017. The India-Cyprus Joint Statement said that “Prime Minister Modi reiterated India’s unwavering and consistent support for the independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity and unity of the Republic of Cyprus”.[1] This was one day before the State Visit of the President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, to India from 30 April to 31 May 2017. For good measure, President Erdogan gave an interview a day before his visit in which he said that the ‘Kashmir issue’ needs to be resolved multilaterally, and offered to be part of the mediation process.[2] For all those familiar with Turkey’s disagreement on references to the ‘Armenian Genocide’, its occupation of Northern Cyprus, and India’s position of resolving pending issues on Kashmir bilaterally with Pakistan, these events were at a dizzying level of coincidence.
Similar events were replayed recently when President Erdogan raised the Kashmir issue in his address at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on 24 September 2019. Prime Minister Narendra Modi held 16 bilateral meetings on the sidelines of the UNGA the same week. It included meetings with the Prime Minister of Greece, the President of Cyprus and the Prime Minister of Armenia. All three nations have disputes with Turkey. They held their first Trilateral meeting in Nicosia on 04 June 2019.
In his address to the Pakistan Parliament on 14 February 2020, President Erdogan expressed support for Pakistan’s position on Kashmir, drawing a sharp rebuttal from the Indian Ministry of External Affairs. In March 2020, India’s Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) won a $40 million deal to supply four SWATHI weapon locating radars to Armenia.[3]
Of course, India’s relations with Armenia are not solely hyphenated with Turkey. India and Armenia have surprisingly old links from ancient times. There is an Armenian Diaspora in India from migrations since the 15th Century. Armenian churches and other institutions exist in India, most notably in Kolkata and Chennai. In recent years, Indian exports to Armenia have surged from $19.8 million in 2017 to $61.3 million in 2019. Corresponding imports from Armenia have however stagnated at $2.8 million and $3.49 million respectively.[4] A liberalised visa regime, higher wages and new business opportunities have resulted in a sharp increase in Indian immigration to Armenia in the last three years. The total annual number of Indian Nationals who received residency in Armenia was 1119 in 2016, 1086 in 2017 and 938 in 2018.[5] The initial attraction was the Indian love for an education degree but increasingly, the migration is for employment. The number of Indian citizens visiting Armenia jumped from 4,266 in 2016 to 28,659 in 2018.
Armenia and Azerbaijan, though neighbouring nations, do not have diplomatic relations and have a protracted dispute over the region of Nagorno-Karabakh. Pakistan has close relations with Azerbaijan and does not have diplomatic relations with Armenia. Azerbaijan, like Turkey, supports Pakistan’s position on Kashmir. In fact, Turkey, Azerbaijan and Pakistan have a trilateral partnership. The first trilateral meeting of foreign ministers was held on 30 November 2017 at Baku. The Joint Statement underscored the importance of “active cooperation” in the “defence and security spheres”.[6]
This, however, does not mean that India does not seek good relations with Azerbaijan. It has been careful in supporting resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute through peaceful means and reiterated respect for Azerbaijan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. Azerbaijan enjoys a pivotal location in the land routes between Asia and Europe. It is a partner in numerous connectivity initiatives that seek to crisscross Eurasia – International North-South Trade Corridor (INSTC), Lapis Lazuli, South West Transport Corridor, and Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BKT) railway, to name a few. India and Russia both seek Azerbaijan collaboration in the INSTC despite good relations with Armenia. The INSTC, when envisaged in 2000, was a ship-rail-ship-rail link with rail from Bandar Abbas port in Iran to the shore of the Caspian Sea, followed by sailing over the Caspian Sea, followed by rail again to reach St. Petersburg. When Azerbaijan joined in 2005, the segment of sailing over the Caspian Sea was replaced with moving freight over rail through Azerbaijan. Armenia is landlocked and lacks the connectivity infrastructure, partly due to efforts of Turkey and Azerbaijan that prevent it from connecting to major links like the BKT. Armenia is also keen to shift the INSTC further eastward towards itself. India-Azerbaijan bilateral trade was around $922 million in 2018, substantially higher than India-Armenia trade. This is primarily due to Indian import of crude oil from Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan has rich crude oil resources and ONGC Videsh Limited (OVL) of India has acquired shares worth $1 billion, in March 2013, in Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (2.72 percent) oil field and the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipe line (2.36 percent).[7] The project got commissioned in 2007 and OVL is a signatory to the production sharing agreement valid till 2049.[8]
Meanwhile, in February 2020, TAIS (a consortium of five shipbuilders) of Turkey signed a deal to collaborate with Hindustan Shipyard Limited (HSL) of India for the construction of five Fleet Support Ships for the Indian Navy at an estimated amount of $2.1 billion.[9] Incidentally, Anadolu Shipyard (one of the shipbuilders that are part of TAIS) is constructing four corvettes for the Pakistan Navy.
The South Caucasus has never been among India’s primary area of interest. However, as India looks towards enhancing economic ties with Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), the regions that provide access to those markets, like South Caucasus and the Balkans, have become important. India has been steering clear of intractable historical issues in a region by dealing with each nation bilaterally. This has proven to be successful in negotiating complex regions like West Asia where India has managed to improve relations with all nations, largely de-hyphenated from their bilateral relations with each other and with Pakistan. India will need to follow a similar strategy with Turkey and the South Caucasus nations to overcome the difficulty in negotiating this region due to the historical animosities between nations in the region and their relations with Pakistan.
End note
[1] Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), Govt. of India, India-Cyprus Joint Statement during the State Visit of President of Cyprus to India (April 25-29, 2017), 29 April 2017.
[2] Press Trust of India, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan suggests multilateral dialogue on Kashmir issue, The Economic Times, 30 April 2017.
[3] Chitaranjan Kumar, India pips Russia, Poland to secure $40 million defence deal with Armenia, Business Today, 01 March 2020.
[4] Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), Govt. of India, India-Armenia Bilateral Relations, 12 March 2020.
[5] Gohar Abrahamyan, For Indians, Armenia Becoming a Destination for Education and Employment, EVN Report, 07 November 2019.
[6] Baku Statement on the outcomes of First Trilateral Meeting of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Azerbaijan, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, the Republic of Turkey, accessed from http://tabriz.mfa.gov.az/en/news/4/3088 on 28 March 2020.
[7] Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), Govt. of India, India-Azebaijan Bilateral Relations, 12 March 2020.
[8] Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), Govt. of India, Press Statement by External Affairs Minister after meeting with Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan, Baku (April 04, 2018), 04 April 2018.
[9] Rahul Bedi, India signs USD2.1 billion deal with TAIS for fleet support ships, Janes Defence Weekly, 23 March 20.
Commander Subhasish Sarangi is a Research Fellow at United Service Institution of India (USI), New Delhi.
Disclaimer: The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the organisation that he/she belongs to or of the USI of India.