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Despite its growing alignment with Pakistan, Azerbaijan is careful that it does not come at the expense of the country's relations with India as Azerbaijan and India are invested in cooperation despite 'several geopolitical differences'.
However, India refrained from inviting Azerbaijan to the BRICS summit and additionally prevented India and Bhutan from reportedly signing a declaration voicing NAM countries with Azerbaijan after radical Shia groups stormed the Azerbaijani embassy in London on August 4th, a Research Fellow at the Topchubashov Center in Baku, Azerbaijan, Mahammad Mammadov, said in a statement for New Eastern Europe magazine. The growing divide between the two countries propagated mainly from the diplomatic affinities in the Nagorno-Karabakh and Kashmir conflicts, however, due to burgeoning economic relations between Baku and New Delhi, the damage to bilateral ties between the two countries did not remain for too long. Moreover, India elected to become more pronounced in its support of Armenia while keeping its "principled position" intact on the Karabakh situation as India's foreign ministry, referring to Azerbaijan, called upon the aggressor side to immediately cease hostilities, New Eastern Europe magazine reported. Moreover, the military ties between the Azerbaijan-Pakistan partnership saw good development in terms of joint military exercises and military education programmes. But, quite soon the war between Russia and Ukraine and the sanctions put by the west on Russia created new opportunities for Azerbaijan and India to put differences aside and co-operate in mutually beneficial areas as India became Azerbaijan's fourth largest export partner in the first six months of 2022, News Eastern Europe reported quoting Mammadov In recent times, China is increasingly seeking to find ways to find connectivity with Europe and the Middle East by bypassing Russia and to do so it is escalating tensions in the South Caucasus region, especially in Azerbaijan with the backing of Pakistan. China has been expanding its BRI projects for last many years. Beijing is being seen building transport routes to Europe that bypass Russia for the last decade. The South Caucasus region acts as a link between the Middle East, China, Russia and Europe and therefore the region has great strategic significance. Secondly, it is China's show of strength to build up connectivity in the region. China's ploy to expand its reach in Azerbaijan seemed highly probable as it comes in the backdrop of Azerbaijan's government probe of a secret military flight which originated from Macao (China) to reach Yerevan in Armenia, reported Portal Plus. (ANI)
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