In May 2025, after Turkey supported Pakistan in the tense relations between India and Pakistan, the bilateral relations between India and Pakistan have become a bit tense.
Turkey not only supplied drones to Pakistan but also supported it diplomatically.
Due to this action of Turkey, Indians are boycotting Turkish goods, which is the reason for tension between India and Turkey.
India’s cancellation of security to Turkish aviation company and continuous boycott of Turkish goods by Indians has created a tense situation between India and Türkiye.
India exports goods worth about US$5.28 billion to Turkey and India imports goods worth about US$2.84 billion from Turkey, so if Turkey response to India, then relations between India and Turkey can deteriorate and India can also suffer losses.
As you know, when there was an earthquake in Turkey in 2023, India helped Turkey a lot under Operation Dost, despite that, in the midst of India-Pakistan tension, Turkey has angered India by giving 300 to 400 drones to Pakistan.
Every year, around 5 crore tourists visit Turkey, out of which four lakh tourists are Indians.
Due to the rising tension between India and Turkey, around 60% of Indians have cancelled their trip and this cancellation has increased by around 250%.
Yet, economically, the US$10.4 billion trade relationship is in India’s favour as India exports goods worth US$6.65 billion to Turkey, which includes engineering goods, mineral oil, pharmaceuticals and textiles, while importing goods worth US$3.65 billion, which includes gold, apples and mineral oil.
India is a big market, therefore Turkey does not have such a big contribution in India’s exports and imports.
Turkey’s contribution in India’s exports is only 1.5% while its contribution in imports is 0.5%. Thus India is not so dependent on Türkiye.
While Türkiye’s engineering goods, defense and drone production along with other industrial sectors are also a good market for Turkey.
About 4 lakh Indian citizens visit Turkey every year, which gives Turkey a profit of 4000 crores. When tension starts between India and Turkey, there is a high chance of decline in this thing too.
If seen from a geo-political point of view, the way Turkey, China, and Azerbaijana are forming a group and supporting Pakistan against India, in the same way India can counter Turkey by getting closer to Greece and Cyprus.
India exports some medicines to Turkey, so if Turkey puts a tariff on those medicines then India can suffer some loss because this is a source of continuous revenue for India, although India has the Africa and Europian union market available to sell medicines.
But if Turkey also starts boycotting Indian goods, then India may also face a lot of problems in importing essential items for energy and defense such as boron chemical nuclear reactor articles.
Last year in 2024, about 48 lakh foreign tourists came to India. In this way, Turkey cannot cause much loss to India in terms of tourism, whereas about four lakh citizens of India go to Turkey for tourism, which gives a profit of ₹ 4000 crores, which is a big amount.
Some experts say that Turkey has influence in the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, so Türkiye can use its influence to reduce India’s reach in OIC. Due to which India may have to face some problems on the route to Central Asia.
Apart from this, traders from Pune and Udaipur have also stopped importing goods like marble and apple coming from Türkiye.
some general information
Turkey considered India as a country after 1947 and only after 1947, Turkey thought of establishing a political relationship with India. Now as you know, at that time, the world was divided into two parts.
As you know, India, Saudi Arabia and the European Union had called for a corridor called the India Middle East Economic Corridor which will connect South Asia to Europe.
Regarding this corridor, Turkey says that this corridor cannot be built without Turkey’s initiative and help.
Turkey means that if India has to connect to Europe in any way, it will have to take Turkey’s help, which means that Turkey can do some diplomatic interference here too, which is not good for India.
One world chose America and the other world chose USSR. But India did not choose any side, rather India started its non-aligned movement. And only after the end of all these cold wars, India and Russia tried to take their relations forward.
So, in this way, looking at many aspects, it is clear that if the tension between India and Turkey increases, then Turkey will have more problems because India is a fast growing economy and India is not much dependent on Turkey, but Turkey is facing economic crisis every year and in some cases is more dependent on India.