By N. C. Bipindra

New Delhi: India’s exit from the Ayni air base in Tajikistan is now official. Ministry of External Affairs’ spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal, on Oct. 30, 2025, confirmed that the Defence Capital report of Oct. 27 was on the dot.

Jaiswal said, during his weekly press briefing, that the Indian Air Force vacated Ayni air base after the bilateral long-term agreement between the two nations had expired.

“See, we have a bilateral arrangement with Tajikistan for the rehabilitation and development of the Ayni aerodrome. This arrangement was in place for several years,” Jaiswal said, replying to a media question.

“After the conclusion of the agreement with Tajikistan, we have handed over the facility to the Tajik side. This happened in 2022,” he added.

The Ayni air base, near to Tajikistan capital Dushanbe, was once seen as an asset for India, providing strategic depth against Pakistan. The exit from the air base is seen as a major setback for India.

Why has India not renewed the defence pact with Tajikistan?

According to two officials with knowledge of the developments, the defence agreement with Tajikistan had expired in 2022, and India and Tajikistan began discussing the renewal of a long-term, broader military cooperation deal in 2020.

That was when, the officials said, India offered the Russian-origin Sukhoi Su-30MKI to the Tajik air force.

However, the long-term defence agreement, which could have been extended for another 20 years if India had wanted, was not renewed on time when the previous one expired in 2022.

And in the last three years, the renewal of the pact has been put in cold storage, without any reasoning being provided, the officials, who requested anonymity as they are not authorised to speak on the matter, said.

Though the sources denied there were major misunderstandings between the two sides on their military cooperation, India sat on the renewal for longer after the previous agreement expired.

This resulted in the Tajikistan government asking India to hand over the Ayni air base to the Tajik military personnel, which came much after the pact’s expiry.

At present, the officials said, the Ayni air base is under the full control of the Tajikistan defence forces, and their personnel are operating the air base to its full capacity.

This included the equipment India gave the Tajiks when they were in the military facility, they said.

Strategic experts, both former practitioners and think tankers, noted that the decision to exit from Ayni was baffling, as India enjoyed the strongest bilateral relations with Tajikistan.

They agreed that the geopolitical pressures from China and Russia, which have strategic interests in Central Asia, particularly Tajikistan, are a key factor in the region.

The possibility of Ayni’s utility going down in importance could also be a reason for India’s hesitant response to a renewed defence pact with Tajikistan, they said, but asked to remain unnamed.

One of them said, this was the time when India should have presence in Ayni air base, as it would have enhanced the Indian Air Force’s strategic depth during Operation Sindoor in May 2025, when India bombed and destroyed nine terror camps and 11 military bases inside Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

The Defence Capital report went viral over the last three days, taking social media by storm, and triggering a major debate among the strategic thinkers and enthusiast circles.

(Updated with the penultimate paragraph, to provide a former practitioner’s perspective on Ayni air base’s importance during recent and future India-Pakistan military conflicts.)

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