Aditi Bhaduri 

Operation Sindoor bared the emerging axis of Pakistan,  Azerbaijan,  and Turkey. While Turkey (Turkiye) and Pakistan have long cultivated ties, Azerbaijan is a relative newcomer.  They call themselves "Three Brothers" and have vowed to support each other on the Kashmir, Karabakh,  and Northern Cyprus -- all territories where each lays claim, respectively.  

However, this raises a question -- What is the basis of this Brotherhood, as all are quite different? 

Turkey and Azerbaijan share a close relationship based on their common Turkic roots. They call themselves "One Nation, Two States". But Pakistan is not a Turkic country. Therefore, in both Turkey and Azerbaijan, the fraternity is a religion-based one. During bilateral visits and meetings between the representatives of Pakistan and Turkey, for instance,  it is quite common for them to evoke the khilafat that had existed earlier when the Ottoman Emperor was acknowledged as the Khalifa - Caliph or the Spiritual Head - of the Muslims world over.

Yet, a closer look would lay bare another reality. It is now widely known and acknowledged that Pakistan Army Chief - now Field Marshal Asim Munir - and his rant about the two-nation theory may perhaps been the dog whistle to the Pahalgam massacre. And yet, look at Pakistan's track record of warring and killing Muslims.

Turkey President R T Erdogan with Pakistani PM Shehbaz Sharif

Based on the theory that Muslims are distinct from Hindus as a nation, this Riyasat-e-Madinah of the modern world is guilty of killing millions of fellow Muslims in its eastern wing, and consequently losing it once and for all in 1971. Despite Bangladesh’s current Islamist government and its growing bonhomie with Pakistan,  its Chief Advisor Mohammed Yunus has asked Pakistan to issue a formal apology and compensation for its war crimes of 1971.

Since then, over the years, as a rentier state providing rich patron states like the Gulf kingdoms its military, and police, Pakistan has gone on to devastate, maim, and kill Yemenis, and even Palestinians - all fellow Muslims. Today it faces its greatest challenges not from India, but from its Muslim citizens in Balochistan,  Sindh, and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, and who can blame them? Like the Bengalis decades ago, the Pakistani state has exploited and dispossessed the resources and people of these states - almost all Muslims.

In neighbouring Afghanistan,  Pakistan first created the Taliban who took the lives of hundreds of other Afghans, again all Muslims, and now Pakistan has been bombing Afghanistan to flush out "terrorists ", again killing, maiming, and displacing fellow Muslims. 

Pakistan's "iron brother" Turkey has an equally vibrant track record of taking Muslim lives. The war that the Turkish state has fought with the Kurdistan Workers' Party till recently has left some 40,000 dead, mainly Kurdish, again overwhelmingly Muslim. While President Recep Tayyip Erdogan invokes the glorious years of the Ottoman Caliphate and Muslim fraternity, he has embroiled his army in wars in Libya and Somalia where the adversaries have all been Muslim. 

Turkey has on its hands the blood of many Syrians too, again mostly Muslim, with his backing of rebel groups linked to ISIS, one of whom has seized power now in Damascus. The Turkey intervention, if only to help Syrians, would have been non-military, and diplomatic. But it was not, because Turkey doesn't seek peace in Syria but strategic depth. The Syrian Civil War will go down in history as one of the most brutal wars in history.

India sending humanitarian aid to Turkey when it was hit by a massive earthquake

Yet, Turkey has not intervened militarily to help Palestinians in Gaza, though its President invokes the state of the Palestinians in his every personal pronouncement. Turkey has not even snapped diplomatic ties with Israel for the sake of Palestinians! So much for Muslim brotherhood and fellowship!

The third brother in this anti-India axis - Azerbaijan - is not to be outdone. While its relationship with Turkey and Pakistan is based on hard-nosed mercantile and military calculations,  it uses Islam as a figleaf. Azerbaijan is a Shi'ite majority, whereas in Pakistan, the homeland of the subcontinent's Muslims, the Shi'ites have been at the receiving end of the majority of Sunnis. In 2020, well-known defense analyst, Dr. Ayesha Siddiqa wrote about the revival of sectarian tension between Sunnis and Shias in Karachi and other urban centres in Sindh and Punjab, pointing out that Pakistan has reportedly witnessed the killing of approximately 4,847 Shias in incidents of sectarian violence between 2001 and 2018.

While Baku explicitly and vocally supported its brother Pakistan against India during Operation Sindoor, it has not only maintained a deafening silence on Gaza but has in the very recent past strengthened relations with Israel. Not only has Azerbaijan’s gas exports to Israel continued unabated - through Turkish territory - but in 2024, Azerbaijani President Aliyev met with Israeli President Herzog. Last month, Baku had invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on an official visit but whch did not finally materialize. 

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On the other hand, Azerbaijan's ties with neighbouring Iran, a fellow Shiite country, are complicated.  Tehran accuses Baku of aiding Israel to use its territory to snoop on it; It is wary of irredentist claims the country may have on its northern territories,  which formed the southern part of historical Azerbaijan. Such are the colors of the Muslim fraternity!

Indians must remember this and call the bluff of these countries for playing the religious card!

The author is an Indepdendent journalist and writes on Middle-East  and Central Asian affairs