 Pakistan and India wage proxy struggle in Karabakh in providing arms to Armenia and Azerbaijan, New Delhi and Islamabad both believe they are defending respective strategic interests, reads an article at EuroSynat.org by Svenja Petersen, a Berlin-based political economist and researcher focusing on the former Soviet Union. The India-Pakistan rivalry is most closely associated with the simmering conflict in Kashmir. Last known is the two countries deepening involvement in the Karabakh conflict. It is noted that Karabakh is emerging as an extension of the Kashmir conflict for the South Asian rivals with both now supplying arms to the principal combatants, Armenia and Azerbaijan. While Pakistan has been siding with Azerbaijan since the outbreak of the first Karabakh war in the early 1990s, India entered the picture as an arms purveyor to Armenia only after Yerevan's crushing defeat in the second Karabakh war in 2020. Some observers believe Islamabad may sell Pakistani and Chinese-designed JF-17 fighter jets to Azerbaijan. India's support for Armenia shifted into high gear in the fall of 2022 with the provision of $245 million worth of Indian artillery systems, anti-tank rockets and ammunition. In May, Yerevan announced it was adding a military attaché to its embassy in New Delhi tasked with deepening bilateral military cooperation. India's decision to get involved in the Karabakh conflict is driven by two factors, one strategic, the other economic. Azerbaijan's victory in 2020 set off alarms in New Delhi by upending what New Delhi perceived to be a geo-strategic balance in the Caucasus. Wary of rising Turkish-Muslim influence there, Indian leaders felt they had to step up cooperation with Armenia, which they hope can once again act as a countervailing regional force. This tendency to side with a non-Muslim party of a local conflict is also seen in India's support for Israel, Serbia and Myanmar. The overriding concern in New Delhi is that if Azerbaijan achieves its strategic goals in Karabakh, the Ankara Baku Islamabad grouping may concentrate its energies in Kashmir. Indian support for Armenia then can be interpreted as a forward defence tactic to keep Pakistan in check in Kashmir. India's involvement in Karabakh is also encouraging closer ties between New Delhi and Iran, which likewise has strong relations with Armenia, rooted in a desire to diminish Turkish and Azerbaijani influence in the Caspian basin.