Krzysztof Iwanek
Over the past few years, Pakistan has attempted to strengthen its ties with other non-Arabic Muslim-majority nations, such as Azerbaijan and Turkey. This element of Islamabad’s foreign policy is interestingly being met with a response from New Delhi: When Pakistan is more active in building relations with a certain Muslim-majority country, India engages more with that country’s rival. The cases in question here are two pairs of nations: Turkey-Greece and Azerbaijan-Armenia.
Turkey-Pakistan cooperation has significantly deepened in recent years. In 2016, the countries signed a deal according to which the Turks would modernize Pakistani submarines, and in 2018 they settled another deal, under which Turkey would manufacture four corvettes for Pakistan. The latter program commenced in 2019 and the first vessel was delivered to in September 2023. It is hard to imagine Pakistan using its ships against the navy of any other nation but India, and thus Ankara’s moves must have been read negatively in New Delhi.
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