The MEA’s secretary (west) Sibi George met Azerbaijani foreign minister Jeyhun Bayramov in Baku and the two sides also held foreign office-level talks.
New Delhi: India’s secretary (west) Sibi George met Azerbaijan’s foreign minister Jeyhun Bayramov in Baku on Friday (April 3), the first high-level diplomatic contact between the two countries since Azerbaijan’s public condemnation of India’s military strikes on Pakistan last year.
In the meeting with Bayramov, the Azerbaijani foreign ministry said “positions on issues of disagreement between the two countries were highlighted, and the importance of dialogue in this direction was emphasised”.
It also noted that “gratitude was expressed to the Azerbaijani side for the support of the evacuation of Indian citizens from Iran.” Around 200 Indian citizens have so far left Iran through the land border with Azerbaijan. The two sides also exchanged views on regional and international security, including the ongoing Iran war.
On the same day, the sixth round of the India-Azerbaijan Foreign Office Consultations was held, co-chaired by George and deputy foreign minister Elnur Mammadov.
The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) stated that the talks covered “trade, technology, tourism, pharmaceuticals, energy, culture, people to people exchanges and [the] fight against cross border terrorism”.
The inclusion of cross-border terrorism on the MEA readout was a pointed reference to Pakistan, with whom Azerbaijan had publicly expressed solidarity during Operation Sindoor last year.
George also met Hikmet Hajiyev, foreign policy adviser to President Ilham Aliyev. Both sides agreed to hold the next round of consultations in New Delhi.
The meeting comes against the backdrop of long-running friction in bilateral ties. Azerbaijan shares close ethnic and political bonds with Turkey, which has backed Pakistan on Kashmir.
At the start of Operation Sindoor last year, Baku sided openly with Islamabad, saying it was “in solidarity with the people of Pakistan” and condemning “military attacks against the Islamic Republic of Pakistan that killed and injured several civilians”.
India’s traditionally close ties with Armenia, Azerbaijan’s adversary in the decades-long Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, has been another persistent irritant. Armenia and Azerbaijan signed a peace deal in August 2025 in front of US president Donald Trump in the White House.
There have been no significant high-level bilateral visits between India and Azerbaijan in recent years, and the last foreign office consultations were held in 2022.
This article went live on April fourth, two thousand twenty six, at twenty-three minutes past one at night.
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