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Nagorno-Karabakh is a landlocked region in the South Caucasus, within the mountainous range of Karabakh, lying between Lower Karabakh and Zangezur, and covering the southeastern range of the Lesser Caucasus mountains. The region is mostly mountainous and forested.
Stepanakert, or Khankendi, is the de facto capital and the largest city of the self-proclaimed Republic of Artsakh, though internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan.
Artsakh, officially the Republic of Artsakh or the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, is a breakaway state in the South Caucasus supported by Armenia, whose territory is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan. Artsakh controls part of the former Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast, including the capital of Stepanakert. It is an enclave within Azerbaijan. Its only overland access route to Armenia is via the 5 km (3.1 mi) wide Lachin corridor which is under the control of Russian peacekeepers.
The First Nagorno-Karabakh War was an ethnic and territorial conflict that took place from the late 1980s to May 1994, in the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh in southwestern Azerbaijan, between the majority ethnic Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh backed by Armenia, and the Republic of Azerbaijan. As the war progressed, Armenia and Azerbaijan, both former Soviet Republics, entangled themselves in protracted, undeclared mountain warfare in the mountainous heights of Karabakh as Azerbaijan attempted to curb the secessionist movement in Nagorno-Karabakh. The enclave's parliament had voted in favor of uniting itself with Armenia and a referendum, boycotted by the Azerbaijani population of Nagorno-Karabakh, was held, whereby most of the voters voted in favor of independence. The demand to unify with Armenia began in a relatively peaceful manner in 1988; in the following months, as the Soviet Union disintegrated, it gradually grew into an increasingly violent conflict between Armenians and Azerbaijanis, resulting in ethnic cleansing, with the Sumgait (1988) and Baku (1990) pogroms directed against Armenians, and the Gugark pogrom (1988) and Khojaly Massacre (1992) directed against Azerbaijanis being notable examples. Inter-ethnic clashes between the two broke out shortly after the parliament of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO) in Azerbaijan voted to unify the region with Armenia on 20 February 1988. The declaration of secession from Azerbaijan was the final result of a territorial conflict regarding the land. As Azerbaijan declared its independence from the Soviet Union and removed the powers held by the enclave's government, the Armenian majority voted to secede from Azerbaijan and in the process proclaimed the unrecognized Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh.
The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is an ethnic and territorial conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, inhabited mostly by ethnic Armenians, and seven surrounding districts, inhabited mostly by Azerbaijanis until their expulsion during the First Nagorno-Karabakh War, which are de facto controlled by the self-declared Republic of Artsakh, but are internationally recognized as de jure part of Azerbaijan. The conflict has its origins in the early 20th century, though the present conflict began in 1988, when the Karabakh Armenians demanded that Karabakh be transferred from Soviet Azerbaijan to Soviet Armenia. The conflict escalated into a full-scale war in the early 1990s which later transformed into a low-intensity conflict following the end of the war, later escalating into another full-scale war in 2020.
Serzh Azati Sargsyan is an Armenian politician who served twice as the Prime Minister of Armenia and was the third President of Armenia, from 2008 to 2018. He won the February 2008 presidential election with the backing of the ruling Republican Party of Armenia, a party in which he serves as chairman, and took office in April 2008. On 18 February 2013, he was re-elected as president and served the entire term.
There are no diplomatic relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan, largely due to the ongoing Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. The neighboring nations had formal governmental relations between 1918 and 1921, during their brief independence from the collapsed Russian Empire, as the First Republic of Armenia and the Democratic Republic of Azerbaijan; these relations existed from the period after the Russian Revolution until they were occupied and annexed by the Soviet Union. Due to the two wars waged by the countries in the past century—one from 1918 to 1921 and another from 1988 to 1994—the two have had strained relations. In the wake of ongoing hostilities, social memory of Soviet-era cohabitation is widely repressed.
Bilateral relations between modern-day Armenia and the Russian Federation were established on 3 April 1992, though Russia has been an important actor in Armenia since the early 19th century. The two countries' historic relationship has its roots in the Russo-Persian War of 1826 to 1828 between the Russian Empire and Qajar Persia after which Eastern Armenia was ceded to Russia. Moreover, Russia was viewed as a protector of the Christian subjects in the Ottoman Empire, including the Armenians.
Azerbaijan–Russia relations are the bilateral relations between the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Russian Federation. The Embassy of Azerbaijan is located in Moscow, Russia. The Embassy of Russia is located in Baku, Azerbaijan.
The Armenian-occupied territories surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh were areas of Azerbaijan, situated outside the former Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO), which were occupied by the military forces of Armenia and the internationally unrecognized Republic of Artsakh from the end of the First Nagorno-Karabakh War (1988–1994) to 2020, when the territories were returned to Azerbaijani control in accordance to the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh ceasefire agreement.
The 2010 Mardakert clashes were a series of violations of the First Nagorno-Karabakh War ceasefire. They took place across the line of contact dividing Azerbaijan and the ethnic Armenian military forces of the unrecognized but de facto independent Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. Both sides accused the other of violating the ceasefire regime. These were the worst violations of the cease fire in two years and left Armenian forces with the heaviest casualties since the Mardakert clashes of March 2008.
The Madrid Principles, last updated in 2009, are proposed peace settlements of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, proposed by the OSCE Minsk Group. As of 2020 the OSCE Minsk Group is the only internationally agreed body to mediate the negotiations for the peaceful resolution of the conflict. Senior Armenian and Azerbaijani officials have agreed on some of the proposed principles but have made little or no progress towards the withdrawal of Armenian forces from occupied territories or towards the modalities of the decision on the future Nagorno-Karabakh status.
EU Strategy for the South Caucasus is a long term strategy which directed to create secure political, economical and social environment next to eastern borders of EU. This is an objective of European Neighbourhood Policy, and forthcoming Eastern Partnership Program.
The political status of Nagorno-Karabakh has remained unresolved since Azerbaijan's recognition as an independent state in 1991. During the Soviet Union, it had been an ethnic Armenian autonomous oblast of the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic; however, the disintegration of the USSR was accompanied by the conflict between local Armenians who sought to join Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia, and local Azerbaijanis who opposed this. The conflict soon boiled over into open warfare in the First Nagorno-Karabakh War and ethnic cleansing, as a result of which Karabakh - as well as 7 surrounding regions of Azerbaijan - came to be occupied by an Armenia-allied de facto state, the Republic of Artsakh. Negotiations took place sporadically over the following decades, during which a ceasefire generally prevailed between Armenia / Artsakh and Azerbaijan. Turkey and Azerbaijan closed their borders to Armenia and Artsakh, and took other diplomatic steps to isolate them. Meanwhile, the United Nations Security Council, OSCE Minsk Group, and other bodies made various statements and proposed dialogue initiatives; none of them successful. In the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war, Azerbaijani forces, backed by Turkey, entered the Artsakh-held territories and retook the southern half of the region, including Shusha. Armenia was forced to concede additional territories in order to preserve Stepanakert and the northern half of the Republic of Artsakh under local Armenian control. The political status of this reduced region was not specified in the agreement, and remains unresolved.
The 2016 Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, also known as the Four-Day War, April War, or April clashes, began along the Nagorno-Karabakh line of contact on 1 April 2016 with the Artsakh Defence Army, backed by the Armenian Armed Forces on one side and the Azerbaijani Armed Forces on the other.
The 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war was an armed conflict between Azerbaijan, supported by Turkey, and the self-proclaimed Republic of Artsakh together with Armenia, in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding territories. It was the latest escalation of an unresolved conflict over the region, which is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, but partially governed by Artsakh, a breakaway state with an Armenian ethnic majority.
The 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh ceasefire agreement is an armistice agreement that ended the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war. It was signed on 9 November by the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, the Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan and the President of Russia Vladimir Putin, and ended all hostilities in the Nagorno-Karabakh region from 00:00, 10 November 2020 Moscow time. The president of the self-declared Republic of Artsakh, Arayik Harutyunyan, also agreed to an end of hostilities.
The Victory Day is a public holiday in Azerbaijan that is celebrated on 8 November, in commemoration of Azerbaijan being the victor in the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war, officially labelled as The Patriotic War. Established by the decree of the President of Azerbaijan, dated 2 December 2020, the holiday is celebrated on the day of the capture of Shusha. It is a non-working holiday.
The Memorial Day in Azerbaijan is a public holiday in Azerbaijan for honoring and mourning the military personnel who have died while serving in the Azerbaijani Armed Forces during the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war, officially labelled as The Patriotic War. Established by the decree of the President of Azerbaijan, dated 2 December 2020, the holiday is held on 27 September, the day when the war began.
Peacekeeping mission in Nagorno-Karabakh refers to the ongoing peacekeeping operations in the Nagorno-Karabakh region in the aftermath of the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war. The operation is intended to monitor the ceasefire between the Armenian and Azerbaijani forces, and is carried out by Russia and Turkey.
References
- ↑ "Russia's State Duma welcomes Astrakhan declaration on Nagorno-Karabakh". Today.az. 28 October 2010. Archived from the original on 29 October 2010. Retrieved 12 December 2010.
- 1 2 "US and France Hail Medvedev Mediation on Karabagh". Mirror-Spectator. November 8, 2010. Retrieved 12 December 2010.
