India has failed Armenia and the "Shanghai Spirit"

On Monday, President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev met with Prime Minister of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan Mohammad Shahbaz Sharif on the sidelines of the SCO summit in Tianjin, China.

The information about the meeting drew attention to the message sent by the head of state to the Indian side. President Ilham Aliyev, in a conversation with the Pakistani leader, noted that India is trying to take revenge on Azerbaijan in international organizations for its support of Pakistan. But it doesn't matter for Azerbaijan, because fraternal relations are above all for our country.

As you know, Azerbaijan, which has the status of a dialogue partner in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, has previously expressed a desire to upgrade it to an observer status. Azerbaijan's rapprochement with the SCO would be a completely natural process, because Baku has established close cooperation with each of the countries (with the exception of India). Azerbaijan is a natural and necessary partner of the SCO space, and, in principle, the registration of its status does not matter for these relations. They will continue and strengthen anyway, because the knowledge of our country is only growing.

The idea that India would block the elevation of Azerbaijan's status began to be talked about back when President Ilham Aliyev was first invited to the organization's summit in 2022. Baku was not very upset and did not take any diplomatic actions to butter up New Delhi.

India treats Azerbaijan strangely. There have never been any special problems between the two countries. There has never been any special closeness, except for the fans of the "Disco Dancer". But this audience is already retired, and the younger generation now has other interests. There are also no serious economic ties or areas where the two countries could clash. However, this does not prevent the Indian side from disliking Azerbaijan for something.

Everyone has the right to likes and dislikes. You can't argue with that. By supporting Pakistan, Azerbaijan has always supported it as a brotherly country, without referring to India. In other words, Baku's friendship with Islamabad was in no way directed against a third country. For some reason, Delhi decided to choose Baku as the enemy, although many people support Pakistan and its partnership. This is an interesting point that speaks to the short-sightedness and illogicality of New Delhi's actions.

At the SCO summit in Tianjin, India was pleased to once again demonstrate its unfriendliness by blocking the issue of Azerbaijan's admission to full membership in the organization. This was expected, and President Ilham Aliyev, at a meeting with the Pakistani Prime Minister, spoke about just such manifestations of the strange foreign policy of the "elephant country". India was getting an opportunity to feed its revenge. Consensus is required to admit new members to the SCO, and the Indians are very happy to take advantage of this. It is not possible to get close to Azerbaijan from any other side, and blocking our country's membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization remains the only sensitive instrument of Indian revenge.

Let us emphasize once again that regardless of its status in the SCO, Azerbaijan will remain an indispensable partner for this space. And here India can't change anything.

By its behavior, Delhi has opposed the principles of the organization itself and the "Shanghai Spirit" it proclaims. These principles are mutual trust, equality, cooperation based on mutual benefit, not solving issues at the expense of the partner's interests, promoting the ideas of multiculturalism and joint development. As they say in China, the "Shanghai Spirit" is the root and soul of the SCO and fully aligns with the goals of the United Nations Charter. It is inextricably linked to the five principles of peaceful coexistence and fully complies with the requirements of the organization's member States in the pursuit of stability, development and cohesion.

That's it. India has gone against the principles laid down in the SCO, which reject the transfer of bilateral disputes to a multilateral platform. And that is exactly what the Indian side did, opposing Azerbaijan's membership. She used the SCO's multilateral platform to get even with Baku. It was low, but, unfortunately for the Indian side, it was not painful.

India also went against the interests of China, which is interested in Azerbaijan's membership in the organization. Chinese President Xi Jinping expressed support for Azerbaijan's accession to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization at a meeting with President Ilham Aliyev. The Chinese leader stated that "China supports Azerbaijan's accession to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and is ready to work closely with it on a multilateral basis to protect the common interests of the Global South and promote the creation of a community uniting the destinies of people."

India is not interested in the interests of the Global South and the problems of the common destiny of mankind. Personal revenge is much more important to her.

And don't think it's just about Pakistan. A more powerful ally of Pakistan than China would be hard to find. Beijing provides Islamabad with all possible support, including military support. Moreover, China, in a sense, stands behind Pakistan in its problems with Indian water blackmail. But Delhi's hands are short against Beijing. In addition, India needs it terribly to counter Trump's sanctions over Russian oil purchases, because India itself is nothing against the United States. By the way, this is also made clear by Donald Trump's actions, who froze similar sanctions against China, but imposed them on Delhi from the end of August.

There is an Armenian factor in India's dislike of Azerbaijan. It's not because Hindus love Armenians. It's just that Armenians are working against Baku everywhere. And the Indians fell for narratives about Baku's support for Pakistan allegedly against India. Pakistan has a special relationship with Armenia. More precisely, there was no relationship at all until this Monday. Only on September 1, 2025, Pakistan, after consulting with the Azerbaijani side, decided to establish diplomatic relations with Armenia and generally recognized it as a state. The Armenians took revenge on Islamabad for these years of non-recognition, and it was most convenient to do this through India, which has territorial claims to this country.

But by continuing to follow the inertia of the "carrot" of the Armenians, India has failed Armenia. While relations between Yerevan and Islamabad began to improve, Pakistan was forced to oppose Armenia's membership in the SCO in response to the Indian side's move.

After the Washington agreements, Armenia also began to try on the role of a country that is not just a speck on the map for others. Serious changes in the perception of Armenia by other countries could also be seen in relation to Nikol Pashinyan in Tianjin. Previously, he was invisible on international platforms.

India has failed its ally by opposing Baku. It is clear to everyone that Azerbaijan and Armenia cannot but be balanced in terms of membership rights in such organizations. If both seek membership, you cannot choose between them. This is diplomacy. The imbalance can harm the bilateral relations, which have just begun to improve. In the interests of peace in the region and advancing the dialogue between the two former adversaries, India, as a world power (as it positions itself), should have postponed its senseless personal revenge and not obstruct the entry of Azerbaijan and Armenia into the SCO.

Azerbaijan has nothing to share with India. As we have already noted, their relationship has a level of point interests that appear depending on situations. But these relations could have great prospects, given the accelerated development of infrastructure projects in Eurasia. But in Delhi, apparently, they can't stop in any way and go by inertia, satisfying their petty aspirations.

Well, Azerbaijan will not become a member of the SCO, so what? India cannot block the role of our country in this space.