**South Asia:** An in-depth analysis explores India and Turkey’s complex bilateral relations, highlighting their contrasting defence exports, strategic partnerships, and approaches to autonomy amid regional conflicts like Nagorno-Karabakh and broader global power realignments.
As geopolitical dynamics shift under the influence of global power realignments and regional conflicts, the evolving strategic relationship between India and Turkey offers a complex yet insightful case in contemporary international affairs. An analysis published by the South Asia Journal Blog highlights the nuanced and multifaceted interactions between these two rising powers amid wider global turbulence, notably influenced by the second Trump administration’s foreign policy approach, the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict, and shifting alliances in Europe and Asia.
India and Turkey present distinct political systems and ideological orientations—the former a vibrant democracy, the latter with a different governance model—but their shared aspirations for strategic autonomy reveal significant parallels. Despite a complicated bilateral relationship marked by divergent positions on key regional conflicts, especially the long-standing Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh dispute, their foreign policy strategies provide valuable comparisons.
Notably, India and Turkey are engaged on opposing sides of this conflict: Turkey has actively supported Azerbaijan with substantial weapon supplies valued at approximately USD $106 million in 2023, while India has emerged as Armenia’s largest defense supplier, exporting nearly USD $600 million worth of defense equipment to Yerevan by the start of 2024-25. Additionally, Turkey maintains a close military and diplomatic alliance with Pakistan, dating back to Pakistan’s independence in 1947, solidified through declarations such as the Islamabad and Baku Declarations of 2021. This trilateral alignment among Turkey, Pakistan, and Azerbaijan contributes to heightened regional security concerns from India’s perspective.
Further complicating the geopolitical landscape is the Turkey-Iran rivalry, driven by competing interests in regions like northern Syria. In contrast, India maintains strong relations with Iran, notably through strategic projects such as the Chabahar Port, a critical node in the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC), bolstering its connectivity and economic outreach through West Asia.
Despite these differences and competing alignments, both Turkey and India adopt strategies of strategic autonomy—each navigating relationships with multiple major powers to avoid overreliance on any single partner. Turkey has evolved from a traditional NATO ally to a power leveraging its geographic advantage as a bridge between Europe and Asia. It plays a pivotal role in strategic energy corridors, including the Southern Gas Corridor vital to European energy security, while balancing engagement with rival powers like Russia and China. Turkey’s diversified foreign policy has facilitated increased defence exports, reaching over USD $7.1 billion in 2023-24, underpinned by indigenous technologies such as the Bayraktar drone, which has notably influenced the Ukraine conflict.
India, for its part, has built a reputation as a leading Global South power advocating non-alignment and has strengthened partnerships across the Quad, the United States, Europe, Russia, and Iran while advancing major regional connectivity initiatives like the INSTC and the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEEC). However, India’s defence export volume, at approximately USD $2.6 billion in 2023-24, remains significantly lower than Turkey’s. Expanding indigenous defence production and exports is seen as a crucial strategic goal for India, especially as it positions itself to become the world’s third-largest economy by 2030.
The analysis emphasises that India can draw lessons from Turkey’s approach to defence self-reliance and strategic balancing. Turkey’s development of niche, cost-effective defence technologies with proven operational success, alongside rapid collaboration between government and private industry supported by flexible policies, has enhanced its role as a global defence partner. For India, similar initiatives could involve streamlining policies to reduce bureaucratic barriers, fostering private sector participation in research and development, and aggressively promoting Indian defence capabilities on the global stage.
India’s geographical position as an Indo-Pacific gateway and Quad participant further affords opportunities to deepen defence and trade ties beyond traditional allies, expanding outreach into Southeast Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. While an EU-India Free Trade Agreement is expected to be signed by the end of the year, a coherent defence partnership strategy with Europe has yet to be fully articulated.
In pursuing this trajectory, India aims to achieve greater strategic autonomy by diversifying its international defense partnerships and simultaneously enhancing domestic manufacturing and innovation capacity. Co-production ventures with the United States involving technologies such as jet engines and drones exemplify steps in this direction.
Ultimately, the South Asia Journal Blog underscores that in an increasingly unpredictable and multipolar international environment, India’s defence policy benefits from embracing flexibility, resilience, and diversification. Drawing on Turkey’s experience, India is positioned to expand its global defence footprint, reduce dependency on singular powers, and capitalise on its strategic geography and indigenous technological potential to navigate the complexities of 21st-century geopolitics.
Source: Noah Wire Services
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