Expert Explains: The Pakistan-Turkey nexus and where India stands
ON Thursday-Friday night, India repulsed a massive Pakistani drone attack on military and civilian infrastructure at 36 locations along its western border. The 300-plus Pak drones likely came from Turkey.
'A forensic examination of the drone debris is currently underway. Preliminary reports indicate that the drones are Turkish-made Asisguard Songar models,' Col Sofiya Qureshi and Wg Cdr Vyomika Singh said in a press briefing on Thursday evening.
A Turkish Ada class anti-submarine corvette docked at Karachi port on May 2, and a Turkish C-130 Hercules military transport aircraft, possibly carrying an arms shipment, landed at Karachi airport on April 27.
Turkey has claimed that these stops were routine, and that the Hercules was not carrying arms. But Turkey maintains an extensive partnership with Pakistan that is in stark contrast to its antagonistic expressions towards India, both rhetorically and substantially.
Turkey was the only Pakistani ally in West Asia to explicitly condemn Operation Sindoor. Other Gulf countries have not only refrained from backing Pakistan, but have also shown greater sensitivity to India's position on Kashmir.
India today boasts strong ties with Saudi Arabia and the UAE, countries that have historically been close to Pakistan. Why is Turkey different?
What are Turkey's interests in Pakistan?
Their shared Islamic identity has long provided the underpinnings for a strong partnership between Turkey and Pakistan.
During the Cold War, Turkey and Pakistan were together in groupings such as the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO) and the Regional Cooperation Development (RCD). The two countries have almost always supported each other during times of crisis.
For instance, Pakistan has consistently backed Turkey's claims against Greece in Cyprus. Pakistani leaders committed to militarily assisting Ankara in the Cyprus crises of both 1964 and 1971. In 1983, Pakistan's military dictator General Zia-ul-Haq famously declared that his country would be the first to recognise Turkish Cyprus if it declared independence.
Following the turn of the millennium, and the rise of Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his political Islamism, the ideological bond between Islamabad and Ankara has only intensified.
Since 2003, when he became Prime Minister, Erdogan has visited Pakistan at least 10 times. His most recent visit came in February this year when Erdogan, now the President, co-chaired the 7th Session of the Pakistan-Türkiye High-Level Strategic Cooperation Council.
Geopolitically, Turkey (with Qatar) is locked in competition with its Gulf Arab rivals, led by Saudi Arabia and the UAE. To curb Saudi-Emirati influence, Ankara has looked for alternative architectures of cooperation with non-Gulf Muslim states such as Pakistan and Malaysia.
Take for instance the 2019 Kuala Lumpur Summit.
Set up by Pakistan, Turkey, Qatar, Malaysia, and Indonesia, the summit was ostensibly meant to bring together prominent Muslim intellectuals and discuss the 'Role of Development in Achieving National Security'. However, it was widely perceived as a challenge to Saudi leadership of the Muslim world. When Riyadh ultimately prevailed upon then Pakistan PM Imran Khan to not attend the summit, Erdogan accused Saudi of threatening Pakistan with sanctions.
Turkey's focus on the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) has grown of late. In 2017, Ankara set up its largest overseas base in Somalia amid growing economic and military cooperation with Mogadishu. In 2024, Turkey sold its Baykar TB2 drones to Maldives.
Since 2000, the Turkish Navy has held numerous joint exercises with the Pakistan Navy, the second largest in the IOR. By contrast, it has hardly had any exercises with the Indian Navy.
What are Pakistan's interests in Turkey?
Pakistan has benefited from Turkey's consistent and strongly expressed support on Kashmir. In February, Erdogan asserted that Turkey 'as in the past, stands in solidarity with our Kashmiri brothers today'.
India deemed these comments 'unacceptable', and lodged a protest with the Turkish Ambassador in New Delhi. During the ongoing crisis, Pakistani legislators on Friday recognised Turkey, China, and Azerbaijan as the three principal states that had expressed full support for Islamabad.
But it is in the defence sector that Pakistan has benefited the most from its partnership with Turkey, which in recent years has emerged as a major arms exporter.
As per SIPRI data, Turkish arms exports (globally) surged by 103% between 2015-2019 and 2020–2024. By 2020, Turkey had become Pakistan's second largest arms supplier (after China), according to the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Established as the Military Consultative Group in 1988, Ankara and Islamabad have a time-tested framework for defence cooperation. Recent Pakistani acquisitions include Bayraktar drones and Kemankes cruise missiles, of which Pakistan was one of the first buyers. The Asisguard Songar is its latest, albeit previously unreported, acquisition.
In keeping with Ankara's Indian Ocean focus, Turkey has played a pivotal role in Pakistan's naval modernisation efforts. In 2018, Turkey's STM Defence Technologies struck a $1 billion deal for four corvettes of a new class for the Pakistan Navy.
More importantly, Turkey's STM — not France's DCNS, the original equipment manufacturer — is conducting mid-life upgrades on Pakistan's Agosta 90B submarines. This is reminiscent of Turkey's Golcuk Naval Shipyard providing refits and upgrades to the PNS Ghazi (an American Tench-class submarine) after US sanctions after the 1965 war hindered it from sourcing American spare parts.
What has the Turkey-Pakistan relationship meant for India?
For India, Turkey's support to Pakistan on the Kashmir question has been an old irritant. 'Don't make your friendships at India's expense,' then External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid had said in reference to Turkey in a 2013 interview.
That said, India has adjusted its own geopolitical partnerships to counter the Pakistan-Turkey nexus.
First, in Eastern Europe, India has consistently supported and engaged the Greece-backed Republic of Cyprus. This is contrary to the Turkish and Pakistani positions, which back the internationally unrecognised Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. Greece has reciprocated with support for India's position on Kashmir.
Second, in the South Caucasus, India has emerged as one of the strongest military backers of Armenia — which is locked in a territorial conflict with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh. In an exceptional occurrence, India emerged as the largest arms supplier to Armenia by late 2024, surpassing even Russia.
Pakistan, which does not recognise the Armenian genocide by the Ottoman Empire in 1915, presumably out of concern for Turkish sensitivities, is aligned with Turkey-backed Azerbaijan. In late 2024, Pakistan signed a $1.6 billion deal to supply Azerbaijan with JF-17 Thunder Block III fighter jets. Pakistan, Turkey, and Azerbaijan held their first trilateral summit in July 2024.
More broadly, both Pakistan and Turkey are misaligned with India vis-à-vis recent strategic shifts in global geopolitics.
Islamabad has evidently suffered from the US shifting from its Afghanistan-focused partnership with Pakistan to a robust Indo-Pacific-focused partnership with India. For perspective, Pakistan did not feature even once in the United States' official 2022 Indo-Pacific Strategy. India featured at least five times.
On the other hand, the planned India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor bypasses Turkey, which has historically seen itself as the bridge between Asia and Europe. The IMEC has drawn explicit criticism from Erdogan, and strengthened Turkey's attempts to establish its own Asia-Europe corridor (the so-called 'Iraq Development Road').
Turkey today is a strong and entrenched part of Pakistan's international alliance that works to India's detriment, second only to China. That India's humanitarian assistance to Turkey after the devastating earthquake of 2023 did not substantially affect Ankara's outlook towards New Delhi is testament to the strength of the Pakistan factor in India-Turkey relations.
Bashir Ali Abbas is a Senior Research Associate at the Council for Strategic and Defense Research, New Delhi
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