Armenia Reaffirms Support for India Over Its Territorial Dispute With Pakistan

NEW DELHI — Armenia has reiterated its support for India over its decades-long territorial dispute with Pakistan and expressed gratitude to New Delhi for its “targeted statements” regarding the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict.

“Armenia has always supported India in the issue of Jammu and Kashmir,” acting Foreign Minister Armen Grigoryan said in remarks on August 15 during an event in Yerevan dedicated to the 75th anniversary of the independence of India.

“At the same time, we appreciate the targeted statements of the Indian authorities regarding the Azerbaijani-Turkish aggression against Artsakh (the Armenian name for Nagorno-Karabakh), the transfer of foreign terrorist fighters to the region, as well as the encroachments on the Armenian borders,” Grigoryan added, according to his press office.

Grigoryan also spoke about an existing “untapped potential” of bilateral relations with India, including “political, security, military, economic, business, cultural, and educational cooperation.”

India’s ambassador and a member of the Indian parliament attended the event.

The predominantly Muslim-populated region of Jammu and Kashmir is a territory that has been claimed by both India and Pakistan since the partition of India in 1947. After a 1972 agreement that followed an Indo-Pakistani war, India has controlled nearly two-thirds of the region.

In 2019, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist government stripped the region of its semiautonomous status, annulled its separate constitution, and split it into two federal territories.

Armenia has no diplomatic ties with Pakistan, which refused to recognize Armenian independence in the early 1990s because of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

Along with Turkey, Pakistan openly supported Azerbaijan during last year’s 44-day war in Nagorno-Karabakh in which nearly 7,000 people were killed

India angered Azerbaijan in May when it described Baku as a transgressing side during border tensions with Armenia and called on it to “pull back forces immediately and cease any further provocation.”