India-Pakistan war.
Even other Muslim countries are refusing to publicly back Islamabad in its escalation against India, further isolating the enemy nation as tensions between India and Pakistan threaten to explode into a full-fledged war following Operation Sindoor.
Why Muslim countries shunned Pakistan?
Pakistan has charged India of violating Article 51 of the UN Charter in the wake of Operation Sindoor. Islamabad had hoped that Muslim nations would back it, but only Turkey and Azerbaijan, two of the world’s fifty or more Islamic countries, have publicly supported Pakistan; the others have taken a moderate stand in the current crisis.
Although India has a greater Muslim population—the second largest in the world—Islamabad has long positioned itself as the self-proclaimed “flag-bearer” of Islam in South Asia, so this has shocked Pakistan, particularly its all-powerful military establishment.
Although Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have provided significant financial support to Pakistan in recent years, things are quickly shifting as these two Gulf superpowers no longer wish to collaborate with Islamabad. Notably, in recent years, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have begun to distance themselves from Pakistan and have shifted closer to India.
The Islamic world has also realized that Pakistan is unwilling to engage in bilateral negotiations to resolve the Kashmir issue; instead, the Pakistan Army and the civilian government use terrorism to carry out horrific attacks like Pahalgam in order to maintain their relevance and gain domestic support.
No rational nation, with the exception of those with a vested interest, like China and Turkey, is ready to back Pakistan because of its unclean support for banned terrorist organizations like the Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Jaish-e-Mohammed.
Why do Azerbaijan and Turkey back Pakistan?
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the president of Turkey, has long been fixated with restoring the country’s former splendor by establishing a contemporary Ottoman Empire and controlling the Islamic world. Ankara is openly supporting Islamabad in the battle with New Delhi and frequently brings up the Kashmir issue, which it has no business or stake in, because Erdogan’s narrative has gained acceptance among Pakistan’s top military and civilian leadership.
The situation in Azerbaijan is rather different. Although it does not directly support Pakistan, Azerbaijan and Turkey have strong diplomatic, economic, defense, and cultural relations; in fact, some analysts have referred to Azerbaijan as Ankara’s satellite state. The relationship between Azerbaijan and Pakistan basically began to take shape during the former’s war against Armenia in 2020, when Islamabad publicly backed Baku and even provided military assistance.
