A year after Operation Sindoor tensions, India and Azerbaijan decide to reset ties

After a year of tensions between India and Azerbaijan over Operation Sindoor, the governments decided to reset ties as senior officials met in Baku for the 6th round of Foreign Office consultations. The talks, held between Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) Secretary (West) Sibi George and Azerbaijan’s Deputy Foreign Minister Elnur Mammadov on Friday are the first such talks since 2022, and after deep differences over Azerbaijan-Pakistan and India-Armenia relations.

In a statement, the MEA said the two sides “comprehensively reviewed” the state of bilateral relations. “The issues discussed included trade, technology, tourism, pharmaceuticals, energy, culture, people-to-people exchanges and fight against cross-border terrorism,” it added.

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Azerbaijan has recently resumed crude oil exports to India, which make up 98% of Azerbaijan’s exports to India, while ONGC Videsh maintains a stake in oil and gas fields and an energy pipeline in the country.

The reference to cross-border terrorism in the statement is significant as last year, New Delhi had been angered by Azerbaijan’s protest of India’s strikes on Pakistani sites during Operation Sindoor after the Pahalgam terror attacks, and indicates that the two countries have smoothed over some of their differences since then. In a statement on May 7 last year, the Azerbaijan Foreign Ministry has “condemned military attacks against the Islamic Republic of Pakistan that killed and injured several civilians,” and called on all parties to “exercise restraint and to resolve the conflict through diplomatic means.” Azerbaijan and Pakistan have a close strategic partnership, particularly given Islamabad’s support to Azerbaijan against Armenia in the dispute over Nagorno Karabakh, while Azerbaijan’s government accused New Delhi of arming Armenia in the conflict.

In September, during a meeting with Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev had also accused India of blocking Azerbaijan’s ascension to the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation membership.

Brotherly relations

“India has attempted to retaliate against Azerbaijan in international organisations, but stressed that this holds no significance for Azerbaijan, as brotherly relations take precedence above all,” a statement from his office on September 1, 2025 said.

However, both sides have improved ties in the recent past, especially after meetings between the newly appointed Indian Ambassador to Baku, Abhay Kumar, and government officials, and Azerbaijan’s facilitation of more than 200 Indians fleeing U.S.-Israel strikes on Iran.

“We have our ambassador there, he recently presented credentials. During the presentation of his credentials, he also discussed several issues of bilateral nature,” MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said at a briefing, side-stepping a question about tensions over Operation Sindoor.

“We are thankful to the government of Azerbaijan for the support that they have rendered for the exit of Indian nationals from Iran through the land border,” the official spokesperson said. In June 2025, Indians fleeing U.S.-Israel strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities had been specifically told not to approach Iran’s land borders with either Turkiye or Azerbaijan due to the rift with them over support to Pakistan, and only travel through Armenia and Turkmenistan.

Sources said that during talks on Friday, the two sides had agreed to “resolve differences through open dialogue and discussion”. Mr. George also called on the Foreign Policy Adviser to President Aliyev and Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov of the Republic of Azerbaijan where they “reviewed the bilateral ties and exchanged views on regional and global matters of common interest”, and agreed to hold the next round of talks in Delhi, according to the MEA statement.