Be sensitive to our concerns, basis for ties: India to Turkey & China

Indian Express

22-05-2025

Almost two weeks after naming Turkey and China for their equipment and weapons being used by Pakistan against India during the military confrontation between May 7 and 10, India on Thursday asked both the countries to be sensitive to its concerns.
'We expect Turkey to strongly urge Pakistan to end its support to cross-border terrorism and take credible and verifiable actions against the terror ecosystem it has harboured for decades. Relations are built on the basis of sensitivities to each other's concerns,' the Ministry of External Affairs' official spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal said.
On China, Jaiswal said: 'Our NSA and the Chinese FM and Special Representative on Boundary Issue Mr Wang Yi had spoken to each other on May 10, 2025, when the NSA conveyed India's resolute stance against cross-border terrorism emanating from Pakistan. The Chinese side is aware that mutual trust, mutual respect and mutual sensitivity remain the basis of India-China relations.'
On May 9, a preliminary probe into the debris after Pakistan's attempt to breach the northern and western fronts had suggested that the drones used by Pakistan were of Turkish origin, the Songar armed drone system.
Songar is an armed drone system designed and manufactured by Asisguard, part of Asis Electronics and Information Systems, to serve as a force-multiplier for low-intensity conflicts. It is the first domestic armed drone system to be operated by the Turkish Armed Forces (TAF). It is Turkey's first indigenous drone armed with a machine gun.
On May 12, for the first time since the Operation Sindoor operations started and India thwarted most of Pakistan's aerial attacks, New Delhi named China-supplied weapons in Pakistan's arsenal that were used against Indian Armed Forces.
Director General Air Operations, Air Marshal A K Bharti, had presented visual evidence of the missile remnants during a joint military press briefing. 'You can see the pieces of it on the screen,' he had said, showcasing debris of the PL-15 that fell inside Indian territory, including a relatively intact rear section recovered from Hoshiarpur, Punjab.
India's Armed Forces intercepted and neutralised a range of high-tech foreign weapons used by Pakistan, including Chinese-origin PL-15 air-to-air missiles and Turkish Byker YIHA III kamikaze drones.
The naming of China was a first in the recent hostilities — all these years, New Delhi has closely tracked the expanding Sino-Pak military ties.
According to a recent report of Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), China has emerged as the largest weapons supplier to Pakistan, accounting for 81 per cent of arms procurement of China's all-weather ally from 2020 to 2024. The procurement included the latest jet fighters, radars, naval ships, submarines and missiles.
Shubhajit Roy, Diplomatic Editor at The Indian Express, has been a journalist for more than 25 years now. Roy joined The Indian Express in October 2003 and has been reporting on foreign affairs for more than 17 years now. Based in Delhi, he has also led the National government and political bureau at The Indian Express in Delhi — a team of reporters who cover the national government and politics for the newspaper. He has got the Ramnath Goenka Journalism award for Excellence in Journalism '2016. He got this award for his coverage of the Holey Bakery attack in Dhaka and its aftermath. He also got the IIMCAA Award for the Journalist of the Year, 2022, (Jury's special mention) for his coverage of the fall of Kabul in August 2021 — he was one of the few Indian journalists in Kabul and the only mainstream newspaper to have covered the Taliban's capture of power in mid-August, 2021. ... Read More