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Jaishankar meets Aliyev in Baku on first Indian foreign minister visit in eight years
The External Affairs Minister called on President Ilham Aliyev and held talks with Jeyhun Bayramov, with transport corridors high on Azerbaijan's agenda.
Key points
- S Jaishankar called on President Ilham Aliyev in Baku on Friday morning.
- It is the first bilateral visit by an Indian External Affairs Minister to Baku since April 2018.
- Azerbaijan pressed its East-West and North-South transport corridors in talks with Jaishankar.
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar called on Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev in Baku on Friday, on the first bilateral visit to the country by an Indian foreign minister in eight years.
“Pleased to call on @presidentaz Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan in Baku this morning,” Jaishankar wrote afterwards. He said he had conveyed the greetings of President Droupadi Murmu and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “Discussed strengthening the relationship between our two countries. Appreciate his positive sentiments for this shared endeavour.”
He then held talks with Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov. The last Indian External Affairs Minister to make a bilateral trip to Baku was the late Sushma Swaraj, in April 2018.
What Baku wants
Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry said the two ministers went over political dialogue, trade, investment, energy, transport, tourism, education, science and culture. Its account put connectivity front and centre: the ministry said it had stressed the “opportunities offered by Azerbaijan’s East-West and North-South transport corridors”, along with the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway, the Port of Baku, the Alat Free Economic Zone and other industrial zones.
Bayramov also briefed Jaishankar on the South Caucasus, including the normalisation process between Azerbaijan and Armenia, and on reconstruction in what Baku calls its liberated territories, where landmines remain a threat. The two sides discussed their work at the United Nations, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA).
A slow thaw
The visit follows the first meeting between Modi and Aliyev, on the sidelines of the SCO summit in Bishkek last month. Since then the contacts have picked up. Minister of State for External Affairs Kirti Vardhan Singh attended the seventh CICA summit in Azerbaijan last week, and India’s new ambassador, Abhay Kumar, presented his credentials to Aliyev. The sixth round of foreign office consultations was held in Baku in April.
The two countries established diplomatic ties in February 1992, but differences over regional and security issues have long held the relationship back.
The numbers behind the ties
Trade between India and Azerbaijan stood at $401 million in 2025, with Indian exports of $226 million and imports of $175 million, mostly crude oil. ONGC Videsh has invested more than $1.2 billion in the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli oil and gas fields and the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline.
Indians have also discovered Azerbaijan as a holiday spot. About 1.67 lakh Indian tourists visited in 2025, making India the country’s fourth-largest source of visitors. Baku has direct flights to Delhi and Mumbai, though IndiGo has suspended its Delhi-Baku service.
The links go back much further. The Ateshgah fire temple outside Baku carries inscriptions in Devanagari and Gurmukhi left by Indian merchants, and Azerbaijani singer Rashid Behbudov’s friendship with Raj Kapoor is still remembered in both countries.
No agreements were announced by Friday afternoon.