Recent years have seen a significant expansion in Azerbaijan-Pakistan relations. Both states have narrow military-technological (Baku’s interest in Pakistan’s arms industry) and wider geopolitical (Nagorno-Karabakh conflict; Pakistan’s cooperation with Turkey and competition with India) reasons for fostering these near-strategic contacts.  

One of the features of Azerbaijan’s foreign policy since the break-up of the Soviet Union has been the diversification of external relations. This fits well into the regional trends where Baku and other former Soviet republics have sought to build relations with far flung states to offset dependency on Russia’s economic and military strength. 

One of such bilateral relations is Azerbaijan’s growing engagement with Pakistan. At first, the closeness might seem unusual, but deeper understanding of both states’ geopolitical imperatives reveals several fields where Baku and Islamabad need each other. 

First is the military sphere. Azerbaijan’s ongoing conflict with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh territory has made Baku one of the biggest military purchasers in the region. However, as most of Azerbaijan’s purchases come from Russia, the country has seen the need to offset this dependency particularly within the light of Moscow’s close military cooperation with Yerevan. Turkey has been one of the places for military diversification, but lately a strong military cooperation with Pakistan too has emerged.

For Azerbaijan, Pakistan’s military experience (nuclear arsenal as well as the ongoing competition with India) represents a powerful impetus to build closer relations. Indeed, Pakistan’s burgeoning defense industry produces powerful weapons with lower than usual market prices. This explains the Pakistan-Azerbaijan defense agreement signed in 2003 which eventually led to Baku’s participation in Islamabad-led multinational exercise – AMAN-2013. Moreover, representatives of Pakistani and Azerbaijani armed forces have met numerous times in the last decade to discuss bilateral military cooperation. 

Military and defense cooperation between Azerbaijan and Pakistan have transformed into a string of continuous high-level meetings and various small-scale military agreements. For instance, one military cooperation agreement signed in February 2014 in Islamabad was later updated in 2015 and 2016, which stipulated future steps for deeper military engagement between the two states. During one of the latest meetings held in October 2018, cooperation on the military hardware was considered, which led to an interesting development in 2019. In March of that year, during Azerbaijan’s defense minister Colonel-General Zakir Hasanov’s visit to Islamabad, both sides discussed potential development of security cooperation, military-technical and military-educational spheres. 

Since then it has been suggested by various media outlets that Azerbaijan seeks to purchase Pakistan-produced JF-17 Thunder fighter jets. Here too military dependence on Russia plays a role as currently the country’s air forces operate only Russia-made jets such as MiG-29, Su-25, and MiG-21. 

Pakistan’s aircraft, also known as the FC-1 Xiaolong, serving as a multi-functional aircraft jointly produced by Pakistan and China, could be a powerful addition to Azerbaijan’s army. Indeed, the JF-17 jet represents an affordable replacement to French-made Mirage III and F-7 interceptors. However, since then no notable progress has been made confirming Baku’s intention of formally purchasing the Pakistani jet-type.

Beyond the military sphere there is also a growing general alignment of wider geopolitical views shared by the two states. This is reflected in numerous official bilateral visits. For example, in 2019, during the president of Pakistan’s visit to Baku, Arif Alvi state that “the bilateral relationship between Azerbaijan and Pakistan has [had] great importance for Pakistan.” He also added that they spoke about “the support of the Azerbaijan government and people on Jammu and Kashmir’s cause” (a core divisive matter between India and Pakistan).

Another imperative for Baku in its relations with Islamabad is the latter’s stance on the Nagorno-Karabakh issue. Pakistan is the only country in the world that does not recognize Armenia as a state because of Yerevan’s support for the breakaway territory. This policy is well reflected in multiple official statements by the Pakistani leadership. Thus, one of the latest official statements read that "the prime minister [of Pakistan] appreciated Azerbaijan’s valuable contributions including as member of the OIC Contact Group on Jammu and Kashmir and reiterated Pakistan’s support for Azerbaijan on the issue of Nagorno-Karabakh."

The latest meeting between the top leadership of the two states took place in early 2020 on the side-lines of the World Economic Forum in Davos where Khan and Aliyev discussed bilateral relations and praised mutual trust. Indeed, cooperation between the two countries goes both ways, with Baku trying to help Islamabad in time of need and vice versa. For example, in October 2018, Azerbaijan officially agreed to offer a $100 million line of credit to Pakistan to help to address growing energy shortages in the country.

Taking a broader geopolitical picture of the region, Azerbaijan is important for Pakistan because of the formers’s location in the center of various east-west, north-south transport, energy and trade corridors. One of such initiatives is the International North-South Transport Corridor (NSTC). However, since the corridor stretches from the Indian territory (Pakistan’s strategic rival) through Azerbaijan, then to Russia’s Baltic ports, it is unlikely that New Delhi would tolerate Pakistan’s active participation in the project. But there are east-west energy and transport corridors linking Azerbaijan with the Black Sea basin and most notably Turkish territory, which Pakistan could be interested in.

This leads us to the nascent trilateral cooperation among Turkey, Azerbaijan and Pakistan where all the three hope that the cooperation will have a major impact on the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Though there is still much to be done to have a build a viable trilateral cooperation model, Ankara’s pivot to the Middle East creates a necessary momentum for fostering deeper engagement.

There is also Pakistan’s concern with the growing Armenia-India cooperation. Strategically interested in countering the growing Turkey-Pakistan-Azerbaijan cooperation, Armenia is interested in deeper cooperation with India, which will remain Pakistan’s strategic competitor in the region in the coming decades. This broader geopolitical scene, as shown in our latest piece, explains Yerevan’s recent efforts to foster closer relations with India – a decision to grant India a $40 million deal to supply four India-produced weapon locating radars (‘SWATHI’, which can handle multiple projectiles fired from different weapons at different locations).

However, at present, Pakistan-Azerbaijan relations lack an economic relations component as none of the countries figure in each other’s top 10 export/import destinations. Moreover, tourism too lags behind, though Baku hosts a growing Pakistani community. 

Overall, the past years have seen consistent steps by Baku and Islamabad to build closer military-technological relations. The bilateral relations in these sectors are likely to grow further in the coming years as Pakistan’s competition with India will subside and Armenia’s position towards Nagorno-Karabakh will remain unchanged.

Emil Avdaliani specializes on former Soviet space and wider Eurasia with particular focus on South Caucasus and Russia's internal and foreign policy, relations with China, the EU and the US. He can be reached at emilavdaliani@yahoo.com.