Indian silhouette in exhausted Armenia’s armament
South Caucasus is not Bollywood

ANALYTICS  26 July 2023 - 16:06

A disguised cargo was recently seen moving in a convoy through the Nurduz border checkpoint in Iran to Armenia. According to live footage received by Caliber.Az, it was likely a military cargo which was delivered to the Iranian port of Bandar Abbas from the eastern coast of the Caspian Sea. Given the blurry motives for the camouflaged freight’s supply, a question pops up - who is the supplier?

According to our data, obtained from two independent sources, the sender of weapons is India, one of the countries that has been increasingly involved in military-technical cooperation with Armenia. It is nothing new that the two countries have signed in the near past military contracts worth over $400 million.

For a wider look into the Indo-Hayastan collaboration, let's go through the statistics of high-level meetings between the officials from these countries just throughout this year. In February, a delegation from the Armenian Defence Ministry led by Deputy Minister Karen Brutyan visited India where he met with New Delhi’s Defence Minister Shri Rajnath Singh. The meeting’s agenda featured issues concerning prospects for expanding Armenian-Indian military cooperation, including joint efforts in broader military-technical reciprocity.

On March 2-4, a delegation led by Chief of the General Staff of the Armenian Armed Forces Eduard Asryan was off to India. He was then received by the Chief of Defence Staff of India, General Anil Chauhan, to negotiate defence cooperation against the backdrop of the existing situation in the South Caucasus.

As part of the intensive exchange of mutual trips, Armenia’s Minister of Defense Suren Papikyan received on July 24 the Indian Ambassador to Yerevan, Nilakshi Saha Sinha, to again put the bilateral defence cooperation under the spotlight.

Going with quite simple logic, it is clear that those meetings should have results unless they have not been on touristic trips to taste chapati or take a tour in the central square of Yerevan.  And now, judging by the video footage we received, India has been delivering on the obligations it took during the talks for supplying weapons and military equipment to Armenia, i.e. for “expanding military-technical cooperation”.

Although Baku warned New Delhi through all channels about the inadmissibility of re-equipping the exhausted Armenian army and throwing weight behind Yerevan’s illusion of possible revenge.

President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev was quite clear in his warnings to India. Thus, accepting the credentials of the new Indian Ambassador Sridharan Madhusudhanan in May of this year, Aliyev once again stated that revanchist forces are reviving in Armenia today, and territorial claims against Azerbaijan are still surviving despite the humiliating defeat in the Second Karabakh War of 2020.

The Azerbaijani president said the rapid armament of Armenia creates new dangers, as well as contradicts its desire for peace with Azerbaijan, in other words, if Armenia wants peace, why does it channel millions of dollars to acquire weapons? Aliyev added that the armament policy pursued by Armenia could lead to new threats to the entire region.

Despite the crystal-clear position of Azerbaijan, unfortunately, the government of Narendra Modi has paid no heed to hints of Aliyev. Instead, India began to fan the extinguished flames of war in the South Caucasus. Seemingly, advisors or aides of Modi and his government are not well studied the vulnerability of the South Caucasus against armed conflicts. The region has been suffering long-lasting conflicts since the early 1990s. Although Azerbaijan has chocked one of the conflict hotbeds in Karabakh in a victorious war with Armenia in 2020, the latter’s distancing itself from normalisation and peace process, instead injecting fresh blood into its territorial claims, prevents the region from entering the era of durable stability.

The supply of ammunition and lethal weapons to Armenia, including the high-precision Pinaka MLRS and long-range guns, is a direct threat to peaceful Azerbaijani cities, even those located far from the border. After all, the 44-day war clearly showed that the Armenian army is mastered in shelling peaceful settlements, killing people in their sleep in response to its defeat on the battlefield.

The cynicism of India is quite obvious given its loudmouth commitment to international law and simultaneous support for the policy of inciting military conflict and disrespect for the territorial integrity of other countries. By the way, this also contradicts the principles of the Bandung Conference and the Non-Aligned Movement, of which India is also a member. Moreover, it was namely India’s former Prime Minister Jawaharlal who came up as one of the pioneers in the creation of the Non-Aligned Movement ...

Meanwhile, the fact that the supplies go through Iran is not a bolt from the blue. Despite the fact that the Mullah regime has long been an outcast in international relations, nevertheless, this does not bother New Delhi at all: anything personal – money, personal, and geopolitical interests.

The theocratic regime’s fanatics, who have been shouting for 45 years that they are defending the interests of Muslims around the world, of which Azerbaijan’s population is part, have long mellowed with Armenia, and therefore, they with great pleasure provided their territory for the transfer of foreign weapons to the “warmonger child” of the South Caucasus.

So, the southern neighbour no longer surprises with its cynicism, duplicity, and hostility towards Azerbaijan. And of course, Armenia must not forget the “Iron Fist” from 2020. Whatever weapons - Indian, French or Iranian, it purchases, it will not succeed in turning the tide in its favour. And if Yerevan is still seduced by the promises of its partners, then the Azerbaijani Armed Forces will again deploy its ultimate combat readiness and professionalism to cripple the remnants of the Armenian army and its new military equipment.

Moreover, this time we will not give Armenia any respite. What did Pashinyan say yesterday? During the 2020 war, did Armenia almost miraculously save its statehood? A hint for you: miracles happen once ...

Caliber.Az