Rahil Siddiqi

In celebration of his nation’s independence day, Azerbaijani Prime Minister Ilham Aliyev was joined by his Turkish and Pakistani counterparts in Lachin to discuss and establish mutual areas of cooperation. Speaking to attendees and the media in late May of this year, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan offered his perspective on the budding tripartite relationship: “Pakistan, Turkiye, and Azerbaijan are three countries, but one nation.”

The following applause echoed throughout the city of Lachin, which only five years prior had been annexed by Baku in its successful Second Nagorno-Karabakh War with Armenia. The site of the summit was certainly not chosen by mere coincidence, and served as a victory lap for Azerbaijan and its closest allies in what analysts and pundits alike have described as an incredibly successful collective decade of geopolitics. Taken together, these developments suggest that the Pakistan-Turkiye-Azerbaijan alignment may not merely be an ad hoc partnership of convenience, but instead an emerging geopolitical bloc shaped by budding regional insecurities. As the global powers grow more fragmented and isolated in their international priorities, coalitions like this one are poised to play a far greater strategic role in Eurasia’s future political and security landscape.

Just one decade prior, the three states found themselves in very different geopolitical circumstances. Domestic violence fueled by sectarianism and an increasingly tumultuous political arena rocked Pakistan, as ties with its traditionally closest ally, the United States, strained with the difficulties behind the war in Afghanistan. Despite repeated attempts by the foreign ministry, Pakistani efforts to raise the Kashmir issue continued to stall on the international stage as India furthered ties with a Western world once nominally aligned with Islamabad’s interests.

President Erdoğan of Turkiye—forever ambitious in navigating his nation’s strategic Eurasian geopolitical position—found himself strangely isolated as international pressure mounted over a failing peace process with the Kurds in the Southeast and a shaken up network of Middle Eastern alliances following the Arab Spring’s regional realignment. Just one year later, Erdoğan’s grip on power would be challenged through a coup, the greatest threat against his control in Ankara since taking charge in 2003. 

Aliyev’s Azerbaijan continued its low-intensity border clashes against Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh, with the casualty ratio favoring its rival to the west. Baku’s infamous caviar diplomacy – treating important delegates to expensive gifts as a form of lobbying – faced setbacks as widespread allegations of corruption plagued diplomatic proceedings for the Caucasian nation already surrounded by regional rivals.

While Pakistan, Turkiye, and Azerbaijan enjoyed cordial relations with one another, ties prior to this decade can be described as surface level and disconnected. Today, that picture has changed. What had once begun as a nominal relationship through shared interests has evolved into a strategic trilateral partnership with regional policy implications, especially in economic arrangements, defense cooperation and critical diplomatic maneuvering.

Over the course of the late 2010s and 2020s, converging strategic needs, combined with a global realignment of international relations, pushed the three nations into deeper collaboration.  Two watershed conflicts in particular reshaped the trajectory of the trilateral relationship: Azerbaijan’s victory in the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War in 2020, and the much more recent May 2025 conflict between Pakistan and India. Each conflict highlighted the extent to which Pakistan, Turkiye, and Azerbaijan were willing to openly back one another, and each demonstrated how previously localized confrontations could accelerate a broader geopolitical repositioning.

The Second Nagorno-Karabakh War was the first major indication that the Pakistan-Turkiye-Azerbaijan triumvirate could produce a visible impact on the battlefield. Turkiye’s drone technology, intelligence support, and diplomatic messaging proved decisive for Baku’s rapid territorial gains in the contested region. Pakistan, while not a direct participant in the conflict, emerged as one of Azerbaijan’s most vocal supporters in the international media and diplomatic arenas, positioning Islamabad as firmly behind Baku’s narrative at forums such as the United Nations. Islamabad and Ankara’s astute backing of their ally stood in sharp contrast to Baku’s opponent, as Armenia—while garnering global sympathies regarding the humanitarian plight in Artsakh—struggled to attain genuine military aid and backing. The war in Nagorno-Karabakh not only shifted the power balance in the Caucasus, but also set the ideological foundation for a more assertive and pronounced trilateral posture; one where diplomatic ties were backed by hard power and coordinated messaging.

Nearly five years later, a conflict in early May between Pakistan and India further entrenched these bonds. The brief but intense conflict, sparked by clashes along the Line of Control (LoC) and amplified by a series of escalatory reactions on both sides, marked the most significant military confrontation between the two nuclear-armed neighbors since 2019. As cross-border Pakistani and Indian air and artillery strikes intensified, Turkiye and Azerbaijan emerged as Islamabad’s loudest diplomatic allies. Ankara condemned India’s actions within hours, framing the conflict as a direct result of unresolved sovereignty questions in Kashmir, while Baku similarly condemned India’s airstrikes on Pakistani infrastructure. For Islamabad, the responses stood in stark contrast to the hesitancy expressed by its traditional allies in the West or the Gulf, many of whom called for de-escalation without assigning blame. The trilateral support during the conflict ultimately signaled to Pakistani policymakers that, in an increasingly multipolar world, their most dependable partners were not necessarily a pick out of the great powers as observed in the Cold War, but like-minded regional allies whose own struggles and ambitions mirrored Pakistan’s. The conflict thus became a symbolic partner to Azerbaijan’s triumph in 2020, with both wars reaffirming the necessity of deepened ties.

While military and diplomatic ties remain at the forefront of the three nations’ relationship, economic ties have begun to emerge as a consequence of such. Azerbaijani energy investments in Turkiye deepened, and preliminary talks emerged on expanding rail and transit corridors linking Anatolia with South Asia. While many such projects remain in their early stages, they reflect a shared desire of a multi-leveled partnership that extends beyond support during episodic crises.

While talks about cementing the relationship between Pakistan, Azerbaijan, and Turkiye intensify into forming a potential “Three Brothers” alliance, potential internal rifts emerge. Baku’s entrenched military and intelligence cooperation with Israel represents one of the clearest pressure points within the trilateral relationship. While Azerbaijan views Israel as a vital counterweight to another rival in Iran, both Pakistan and Turkiye approach that partnership with caution. Pakistan, constrained by its longlasting vocal pro-Palestine stance and its reliance on stable relations with Iran to manage sectarian spillover, cannot fully embrace a security alignment that strengthens Israel’s regional position. Turkiye, too, has recently embraced a confrontational foreign policy against Tel Aviv over the War in Gaza and sees Azerbaijan’s deepening ties with Israel as a variable that can disrupt Ankara’s careful balancing act with Tehran. Iran’s periodic threats and military posturing along the Azerbaijani border only amplify the risk that any Azerbaijani-Israeli coordination would inflame Tehran, forcing Pakistan and Turkiye into a regional crisis they would much rather avoid.

For Turkiye, the alliance’s trajectory is constrained by the country’s ongoing struggle to balance its regional ambitions with NATO obligations. Any escalation involving Pakistan or Azerbaijan—especially one that opposes American, British, French or German preferences—could place Ankara in a precarious position, forcing it to choose between its Western or regional partners. Already, this tension has already surfaced in past disputes over F-16 modernization and sanctions tied to Turkiye’s defense procurement choices, rising from concerns about technological share with  more Eastern aligned nations such as Pakistan and China. 

Pakistan, meanwhile, is economically bound to Beijing through CPEC and relies heavily on Gulf monarchies for stability through labor remittances and political backing. Any new trilateral policy that disrupts current Gulf or Chinese interests—such as Turkiye and Saudi Arabia’s competitive gambit for leadership within the Muslim world—could place Islamabad in an awkward diplomatic triangle. While Three Brothers offers significant opportunity, Pakistan cannot easily alienate partners that directly influence its fiscal survival.

Whether this Eurasian partnership becomes a formal pact or remains an emergency coalition, its evolution demonstrates an emerging fundamental truth behind contemporary geopolitics. In a world where the once established centers of projected power are increasingly distracted or divided, new coalitions are emerging from peripheralized corners, forged not exclusively by ideology but by necessity, opportunity, and the broader pursuit of strategic autonomy.