Last week, as hundreds of drones from Pakistan infiltrated India’s Western front, residents in border towns watched in fear, red lights flashing across the night skies with an eerie whirring sound.
The unmanned aerial vehicles, targeting multiple Indian military sites along the International Border, were largely intercepted and neutralised by India’s counter-drone and air defence systems. However, the large-scale deployment of Turkish-origin Baykar YIHA III and Asisguard Songar drones – unleashing coordinated drone warfare against India – marked a surprising display of Pakistan’s tactical capabilities, sourced from Ankara.
“Pakistan’s use of multiple drones – loitering, probing, and suicide – has brought drone warfare into the South Asia region,” says RK Narang, a former IAF pilot and drone specialist at the Institute of Defence Studies and Analysis. “It was anticipated that Pakistan would use drones. But the number of drones it fielded, including swarms to jam air defence systems, demonstrated capabilities previously unknown. They caused minor damage, but overall, India was able to successfully neutralise them using both indigenous and foreign counter-drone systems.”
According to Narang, the Indian armed forces deployed a diverse range of indigenous counter-drone solutions, including the DRDO-developed D4S (Drone Detect, Deter and Destroy System) – a multi-sensor, multi-kill platform that can detect, track, and neutralise small drones – as well as Israeli loitering drones, Russian integrated air defence systems, and French Rafale jets to strike Pakistan’s offensive capabilities.
Besides Turkish drones, Pakistan also displayed its expanding military arsenal with Chinese-origin PL-15 air-to-air missiles and J-10C fighter jets, which allegedly shot down Indian aircraft, Beidou satellites and the US-supplied F-16.
The deployment of varied foreign-sourced military hardware – some of which was battle-tested for the first time in a regional conflict – has raised strategic concerns for several international players involved in arming the two nuclear-armed nations. Before high-level mediation by the United States led to a ceasefire, there were serious concerns about the bilateral conflict triggering broader geopolitical instability.
Meanwhile, Turkey’s entry into the India-Pakistan hostilities through drone warfare has drawn considerable attention to Ankara as a new arms supplier. The Islamabad-Ankara bonhomie is not new. Since 2018, the two nations have nurtured a growing defence and strategic partnership beyond mere political alignment. Days after the Pahalgam attack and just before the military engagement erupted, the arrival of the Turkish naval ship TCG Büyükada (F-512), an Ada-class corvette, along with a Turkish C-130 Hercules military transport aircraft in Karachi on April 27, raised eyebrows and fueled speculation about Turkey’s role.
“Islamabad has secured a range of advanced defence equipment in addition to smaller drones to bolster border defence and enhance capacities in both asymmetric and conventional warfare scenarios,” says Syed Eesar Mehdi, a research scholar at Delhi’s Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies who tracks Pakistan’s defence and strategic security.
Until now, China has been Pakistan’s primary arms supplier, accounting for 81 percent of its total imports, according to data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. However, Islamabad has increasingly leaned on Ankara to diversify its military procurement. Pakistan is set to acquire four MILGEM-class corvettes (anti-submarine warships), T129 ATAK helicopters, and is likely to join the fifth-generation Turkish Aerospace Kaan fighter aircraft programme.
Turkey’s advanced drone technology is a key area of interest for Pakistan. “Turkey is a leading manufacturer of low-cost drones, and these have helped Pakistan fill critical gaps in border surveillance. This signifies a strategic shift towards network-centric warfare, integrating AI capabilities and satellite-guided munitions into Pakistan’s military doctrine,” Mehdi adds.
Security forces believe that Pakistan has been using Turkish drones for dropping weapons in Punjab and helping militants in Kashmir to infiltrate across the border. They are also being used by the Bangladeshi military along the India-Bangladesh border for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions.
The precision-guided Bayraktar drones, capable of taking out even anti-aircraft systems, have earned a reputation for reversing battlefield dynamics. Turkey first used them in Syria in 2016 against rogue Islamic State terrorists and Syrian Kurdish forces. Their deployment by Azerbaijan during the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict significantly weakened Armenian defences. In the Ukraine-Russia war, these drones have proven to be strategic assets for Kyiv.
Neo-Ottoman identity
As a NATO member with the second-largest military fleet after the US, Turkey has been leveraging its defence and tech capabilities to forge new alliances. The ongoing conflict has served as a strategic platform for Turkey to project its advanced drone technology and signal its interests to wield geopolitical influence in the region, observes Dr Adil Rasheed, head of the Counter-Terrorism Division at IDSA.
With the ‘Asia Anew’ initiative, launched in 2019, Turkey has sought to reinforce its role as a bridge between East and West. Its eastward outreach – via military, defence and trade partnerships with India’s neighbouring countries like Maldives, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Pakistan – is concerning as it could undermine India’s strategic interests, Rasheed opines. Turkey has expressed interest in joining both the BRICS bloc and China-led Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, where India is a member, to expand its regional influence.
Under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, there has been a revival of pan-Islamic and neo-Ottoman ideologies aimed at reasserting Turkey’s influence in regions once under Ottoman control.
Last year, Ankara officially began referring to Central Asia as ‘Turkestan’ to emphasise its historic ties with the region. Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan also invoked the Indian Khilafat Movement – launched in the 1920s to support the Ottoman Empire – as a foundation for a ‘special relationship’ with Turkey. “In the same vein, it also recognises its historic and cultural association with the Indian subcontinent, where Turkic kings like Mahmud Ghaznavi, the first Turkic invader, and Muhammad Ghuri, founder of the Delhi Sultanate, ruled India before the Mughals,” Rasheed adds.
Under Erdogan’s tenure, Turkey’s support for Pakistan and its anti-India stance – especially on Kashmir – has been a challenge for Indian diplomacy, notes Kabir Taneja, Deputy Director, Strategic Studies at the Observer Research Foundation. As a founding member of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, Ankara has consistently backed Pakistan on the Kashmir issue. Erdoğan has repeatedly raised Kashmir at the UN General Assembly (except in 2024), advocating for its resolution through dialogue. “Making Kashmir an international issue is part of Erdoğan’s political branding as the defender of Muslim causes. He is the only Muslim leader who has also raised the rights abuses of Uyghurs in Xinjiang, China. But beyond posturing, there’s little actual impact,” Taneja says.
Pakistan is politically and strategically aligned with Ankara's foreign policy to establish a multipolar, Turkey-centric international order. And also shares Erdogan’s vision of forming a new bloc of Muslim-majority countries, distinct from the traditional grouping led by Saudi Arabia. Riyadh’s growing frustration with Islamabad, particularly over its inability to control religious extremism and militancy, and its deepening ties with New Delhi across strategic, trade, and energy sectors, could push Pakistan closer to Turkey. Saudi Arabia also strongly condemned the Pahalgam attack, which took place during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s official visit, prompting him to cut short his stay in the kingdom.
However, Taneja argued that beyond transactional defence deals, Turkey is unlikely to escalate its involvement as an interventionist state in Kashmir or the broader India-Pakistan conflict. “The cost-benefit analysis of Turkey’s support to Pakistan reveals little to no economic advantage, aside from boosting Erdoğan’s global political branding. If there were tangible gains, Turkey might have become a more vocal advocate of Pakistan’s interests,” he notes.
Meanwhile, revelations of Turkey’s military contributions to Pakistan, along with Ankara’s strong condemnation of Indian military strikes, have triggered a backlash in India. Calls to ‘Boycott Turkey’ and the cancellation of travel plans by Indian tourists and tour operators have deepened the public perception of Ankara as a hostile player. The same was evident with several universities suspending MoUs with Turkish entities.
The Indian government also briefly suspended China’s Global Times and Turkey’s TRT World, days after reports suggested a disinformation warfare against India emanating from Pakistan, Turkey, China and Bangladesh.
“The recent developments – particularly the spotlight on Turkey’s drone support to Pakistan – have shifted public sentiment. Even if there were prior efforts to ‘normalise’ India-Turkey relations, they have now been set back by several years,” Taneja says.
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