Geostrategic triad in Eurasia: Azerbaijan-Turkiye-Pakistan partnership

The meeting brought together Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, transforming years of rhetorical solidarity into a formal strategic partnership. The summit's core objective was to institutionalize their deepening ties, moving beyond the informal "brotherly alliance" to establish a structured trilateral framework. The leaders committed to expanding cooperation across critical domains, including defense, security, counter-terrorism, trade, and energy, signaling the rise of a new geopolitical axis in Eurasia. President Erdoğan emphasized that this enhanced cooperation would be coordinated through the respective foreign ministries, supported by regular high-level meetings. President Aliyev described the event as the beginning of "a new page of our trilateral cooperation," a sentiment echoed by Prime Minister Sharif, who called the partnership "of great importance and meaning for all of us."

The choice of Lachin as the summit venue further amplified the symbolism. Recently restored to Azerbaijani control after decades of occupation, Lachin stood not just as a geographic location but as a potent emblem of victory and national renewal. The summit coincided with the official inauguration of Lachin International Airport, jointly opened by the three leaders. As Azerbaijan's third airport in the liberated territories and its highest-altitude civilian airfield, it was presented as a gateway for economic revival, tourism, and regional connectivity. President Erdoğan hailed the facility as "a reflection of Azerbaijan's vision for the future," while President Aliyev highlighted its role in advancing the reintegration of Karabakh.

Yet the airport's technical features and geographic positioning suggest ambitions that go far beyond civil aviation. Built at an altitude of 1,700 to 1,800 meters in challenging mountainous terrain, it boasts a 3,000-meter-long, 60-meter-wide runway capable of accommodating all types of aircraft, including heavy military transports. Its proximity to key cities such as Shusha and Kalbajar adds to its strategic value. The inauguration ceremony, graced by the leaders of all three nations, underscored this dual function, marking the airport not just as an infrastructure project but as a geopolitical asset. It symbolizes Azerbaijan's military and political victory, reinforced by its allies, and serves as a logistical hub to secure those gains. This sophisticated dual-use strategy, where soft power narratives of tourism and development are layered over hard power infrastructure, reflects a broader recalibration in Azerbaijan’s foreign policy. It seeks to consolidate post-war achievements through durable strategic alliances and expanded regional influence.

This deep symbolism, combining geopolitical ambition with post-conflict renewal, echoes an earlier milestone in the region’s evolving strategic landscape. Yet, this is not the first time that the Karabakh region has witnessed such a strategic alignment. The landmark Shusha Declaration, signed between Azerbaijan and Türkiye in June 2021, was the first of its kind, elevating bilateral relations to the level of a formal strategic partnership. Signed in the cultural capital of Shusha shortly after Azerbaijan’s decisive victory in the 2020 Second Karabakh War, the declaration symbolized not only military and political solidarity but also a shared vision for the post-conflict reconstruction and regional integration of Karabakh. It outlined cooperation in key areas such as defense, energy, transport, education, and cultural exchange, while affirming Türkiye’s unwavering support for Azerbaijan’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. The Shusha Declaration laid the groundwork for subsequent trilateral and multilateral engagements, embedding the South Caucasus more firmly into the broader geopolitical strategies of Baku and Ankara. As such, the 2021 agreement served as a foundational moment in the formation of a new regional order, one driven by strategic depth, shared identity, and long-term collaboration between like-minded partners.

This broader shift is most clearly visible in Baku’s changing security doctrine. Azerbaijan's primary foreign policy imperative is to consolidate the territorial and political gains from the 2020 Second Karabakh War and the 2023 anti-terror operation, while deterring any potential revanchist ambitions from Armenia. Historically reliant on Russia as the dominant security actor in the South Caucasus, Azerbaijan's strategic realignment toward Türkiye, a NATO member, and Pakistan, a nuclear-armed power, marks a significant departure. This trilateral configuration provides Baku with new security assurances and greater strategic autonomy, reducing its dependency on Moscow and expanding its diplomatic and military latitude.

For Türkiye, the alliance aligns closely with its broader 21st-century grand strategy centered on achieving "strategic autonomy" and asserting itself as a key pole in an emerging multipolar world order. This involves recalibrating away from overreliance on traditional Western alliances, particularly NATO, and forging alternative regional partnerships. The trilateral format enables Ankara to project influence eastward, linking its growing assertiveness in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea to the South Caucasus and South Asia. At the same time, it supports President Erdoğan's long-standing ambition to position Türkiye as both a leader of the Turkic world and a prominent voice in the broader Islamic community, challenging the dominance of established regional powers like Saudi Arabia and Iran and showcasing a model of assertive, modern Muslim leadership.

Pakistan's rationale for embracing the trilateral alliance is rooted in both its external security imperatives and internal economic exigencies. On the diplomatic front, Islamabad has often found itself isolated and in need of steadfast allies, particularly regarding its position on the disputed region of Kashmir. Both Ankara and Baku have offered strong and consistent support in forums such as the UN and the OIC, a level of backing that many of Pakistan's traditional partners in the Gulf have failed to deliver. Strategically, the alliance offers critical "strategic depth" in countering what Islamabad perceives as an expanding alignment among India, Armenia, Greece, and occasionally Iran. The trilateral axis helps mitigate fears of strategic encirclement.

Domestically, the alliance holds even greater significance. Pakistan’s ongoing economic difficulties have forced it to seek external investment and strategic partnerships. The promise of a $2 billion investment package from Azerbaijan targeting key sectors such as energy, agriculture, and industry provides a timely economic lifeline. Moreover, the alliance enhances Pakistan’s defense-industrial prospects. The sale of the jointly produced Sino-Pakistani JF-17 fighter jet to Azerbaijan is not merely a commercial arms deal; it represents a strategic success, generating essential foreign currency, sustaining production lines, and elevating the country’s profile as a defense exporter.

What makes this trilateral alignment particularly robust is the deepening interdependence in the defense-industrial sphere. Rather than a loose political coalition of convenience, the partnership increasingly resembles a self-reinforcing strategic loop. It begins with a convergence of needs and capabilities: Türkiye, excluded from the F-35 program, seeks export partners to help finance and co-develop its indigenous fifth-generation Kaan fighter. Azerbaijan, flush with hydrocarbon revenues, aims to modernize its air force and reduce reliance on outdated Russian platforms. Pakistan, for its part, needs to sustain JF-17 production and expand its defense export portfolio.

In this context, Azerbaijan’s acquisition of a substantial fleet of JF-17 Block III jets from Pakistan is more than a transactional deal. It opens the door to deeper industrial cooperation. Plans are being explored to integrate Turkish avionics and weapons systems into the aircraft, transforming what began as a bilateral exchange into a trilateral defense project. There is also growing interest in expanding this cooperation to Türkiye’s Kaan fighter program. While formal agreements remain pending, discussions suggest a framework where Azerbaijan could provide financial investment, Pakistan could contribute engineering expertise honed from the JF-17 program, and Türkiye would lead in systems integration and final assembly.

This evolving model constitutes a strategic "closed-loop system" in which each country’s contribution amplifies the collective capability of the group. Pakistan’s exports to Azerbaijan reinforce its industrial base, enabling it to become a more valuable partner in advanced fighter programs. Türkiye secures cost-sharing and engineering support for its ambitious Kaan platform. Azerbaijan, in return, gains access to two tiers of airpower modernization: the JF-17 in the short term and the Kaan in the longer term. Beyond the immediate defense dividends, this arrangement creates a powerful form of path dependency, binding the three nations through interlocking technological, financial, and strategic equities that are not easily reversed. If sustained, this defense-industrial synergy could serve as the institutional backbone of a long-term strategic triangle in Eurasia.

In sum, the Azerbaijan–Türkiye–Pakistan trilateral partnership represents a significant shift in Eurasia’s geopolitical architecture, one that moves beyond symbolic brotherhood toward a pragmatic, multi-layered strategic alliance. Anchored in shared security concerns, mutual economic interests, and complementary defense-industrial capabilities, the partnership has evolved into a self-sustaining framework of cooperation.

The Lachin summit served as both a political milestone and a metaphor for a broader transformation: from fragmented bilateral ties to a coordinated trilateral mechanism capable of shaping regional power dynamics. As regional and global power centers continue to shift, the durability of this trilateral axis will depend on its partners’ ability to institutionalize cooperation, manage external perceptions, and align strategic ambitions with tangible outcomes. If successfully sustained, the Azerbaijan–Türkiye–Pakistan alignment may emerge as a defining pillar of 21st-century geopolitics in Eurasia, linking South Asia, the Middle East, and the South Caucasus through a uniquely integrated model of solidarity, capability, and strategic foresight.

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