Baku, July 28, 2023 (PPI-OT): Azerbaijan summoned the Indian ambassador and lodged a protest about India’s defence ties with Armenia after the videos showing transfer of Indian weapons to Armenia through Iran surfaced. An Azeri media outlet on Wednesday released a video which showed a truck with its cargo under a blue tarpaulin moving across the Nurduz border point from Iran to Armenia. The report claimed that as per their sources, the truck was carrying military cargo from India to Armenia. Based on those videos, the Azerbaijan government submitted a protest to the Indian government.
The state-run Azerbaijan Press Agency (APA) reported that the Assistant to the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Head of Foreign Policy Affairs Department of the Presidential Administration Hikmat Hajiyev met with the Indian ambassador, Sridharan Madhusudhanan. The report maintained that during the meeting, Hikmat Hajiyev conveyed the Azerbaijani side’s concern about deepening military cooperation between Armenia and India and the dissemination of photos and videos in the media about transferring India-made weapon systems to Armenia through Iran in recent days.
Hikmat Hajiyev claimed that India’s delivery of lethal weapons to Armenia came against the ongoing negotiations for a peace deal between the two Eurasian states. Stating that it will lead to “militarisation” of Armenia and aggravate the situation, he said the Indian weapon transfers were “obstacles to the establishment of sustainable peace and security in the South Caucasus region”. “It is incompatible both with India’s self-proclaimed foreign policy based on the norms and principles of international law as well as the historical ‘Bandung Principles’ of the Non-Aligned Movement that India is party to,” the Azeri official was quoted as saying by APA.
It is to mention here that in September 2022, Indian media reports said that Armenia and India had signed a major defence deal for procurement of Pinaka multi-rocket launch systems and their ammunition. It was only the latest in a long list of weapons that Armenia was procuring from India. The diplomatic confrontation of Azerbaijan with India comes amidst the fresh tension between Azerbaijan and Armenia on the Nagorno-Karabakh.
For more information, contact:
Kashmir Media Service
Phone: +92-51-4435548, +92-51-4435549
Fax: +92-51-4861736
Email: info@kmsnews.org
Website: www.kmsnews.org