When an Ankara-based Turkish think tank hosted an India-Turkey conference for the first time last year, bringing together experts and officials of the two countries, the mood was optimistic.
Both Turkish and Indian officials invoked history, recalling Indian support for the Turkish War of Independence and pointing to shared words in both languages, such as hava (air) and kısmet (fate).
The conference aimed to kick-start stronger Turkish-Indian relations.
As emerging economies and rising powers, the two countries had been expanding bilateral trade despite politically cool relations shaped by their respective leaders' positions. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s close ties with the Muslim world and Pakistan sat uneasily with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s deepening relations with Israel.
The conference was reportedly such a success that, according to several sources, Pakistani officials were unhappy because they had not been consulted.
