India has been continuously stepping up the diplomatic offensive against Turkey ever since President Recep Tayyip Erdogan took an anti-India stance on the issue of Article 370 abrogation last year during the UN General Assembly session last year. He had said,
“Despite the resolutions adopted, Kashmir is still besieged and eight million people are stuck in Kashmir.” He had added, added, “In order for the Kashmiri people to look at a safe future together with their Pakistani and Indian neighbours, it is imperative to solve the problem through dialogue and on the basis of justice and equity, but not through collision.”
PM Modi has retorted to Erdogans’s objectionable, anti-India stand by engaging with the Armenia PM Nikol Pashinyan and Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades on the sidelines of the 74th UN General Assembly.
By holding top-level meetings with Cyprus and Armenia, countries which have been wronged by Turkey in the past, India has sent subtle signals to the Turkish President not to interfere in India’s internal matters at a multilateral level.
India’s soft diplomatic offensive took shape of a more pronounced recently when New Delhi bagged a deal worth $40 million for four indigenously-built weapon locating radars to Armenia by beating Russian and Polish sellers. “The deal is for supplying four Swathi weapon locating radars developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and manufactured by the Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) to Armenia in Europe,” government sources told ANI.
Turkey shares tense relations with Armenia due to historical reasons and now the Modi government seems to be giving it back to Erdogan in the language that he understands.
Continuing this diplomatic offensive, PM Modi will visit Egypt next week- his first visit to the Middle East this year. The Prime Minister will be on a visit to Cairo on March 14-15. This comes with the backdrop of the war in Libya where Turkey and Egypt are rivals.
India and Egypt share warm ties with strategic partners in the sectors of counter-terrorism and deradicalisation. New Delhi and Cairo had signed an agreement to share information on and joining hands against terrorism. Since 2008, every Egypt President has visited India showing the impressive deepening of ties between the two countries.
But PM Modi’s visit next week- his first to the Arab country since he stormed to power in 2014 must be viewed in the larger context of Erdogan’s anti-India stance and strained Turkey-Egypt ties over Libya.
The ties between Ankara and Cairo have been going through a phase of extreme acrimony. Last year, Egypt became the first Islamic country to implicitly recognise the Armenian genocide committed by the erstwhile Ottoman Empire in the early twentieth century- an issue towards which Turkey remains highly sensitive.
Tensions are also running high between Turkey and Egypt owing to the Libyan crisis. While Turkey is extending support to the UN-recognised government in Tripoli, Egypt has been supporting the General Khalifa Haftar led Libyan National Army (LNA) along with Russia, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The renegade General led forces have kept the capital under siege for the last 10 months.
Last month, the LNA had also claimed to have killed 16 Turkish troops as the conflict has shown no signs of de-escalation. Turkey and Egypt are therefore engaging each other militarily in Libya.
India by fostering stronger relations with Egypt is going to give more pronounced signals to Erdogan- harsh consequences will follow for taking an anti-India line and interfering with New Delhi’s internal affairs at a multilateral level. With this, India’s diplomatic offensive against Ankara is going to escalate further. Erdogan made a huge mistake by taking a pro-Pakistan and anti-India stance, as New Delhi is cornering Turkey from all possible fronts now.