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The Azerbaijani Armed Forces is the military of the Republic of Azerbaijan. It was re-established according to the country's Law of the Armed Forces on 9 October 1991. The original Azerbaijan Democratic Republic's armed forces were dissolved after Azerbaijan was absorbed into the Soviet Union as the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic from 28 April 1920. After the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991–92, Azerbaijan's armed forces were reformed based on Soviet bases and equipment left on Azerbaijani soil.
Artsakh, officially the Republic of Artsakh or the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh, was a breakaway state in the South Caucasus whose territory was internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan. Between 1991 and 2023, Artsakh controlled parts of the former Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast of the Azerbaijani Soviet Socialist Republic, including its capital Stepanakert. It had been an enclave within Azerbaijan from the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war until the 2023 Azerbaijani offensive, when the Azerbaijani military took control over the remaining territory controlled by Artsakh. Its only overland access route to Armenia after the 2020 war was via the five kilometres (3.1 mi)–wide Lachin corridor, which was placed under the supervision of Russian peacekeeping forces.
The OSCE Minsk Group was created in 1992 by the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), now Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), to encourage a peaceful, negotiated resolution to the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh.
The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is an ethnic and territorial conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the region of Nagorno-Karabakh, inhabited mostly by ethnic Armenians until 2023, and seven surrounding districts, inhabited mostly by Azerbaijanis until their expulsion during the 1990s. The Nagorno-Karabakh region was entirely claimed by and partially controlled by the breakaway Republic of Artsakh, but was recognized internationally as part of Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan gradually re-established control over Nagorno-Karabakh region and the seven surrounding districts.
Relations have always been strong between Azerbaijan and Turkey, the only two predominantly Turkic countries located west of the Caspian Sea. Former Azerbaijani president Heydar Aliyev often described the two as being "one nation, two states."
There are no diplomatic relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The two neighboring states 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, becoming the constituent republics of Soviet Armenia and Soviet Azerbaijan. Due to the five wars waged by the countries in the past century—one from 1918 to 1921, another from 1988 to 1994, and the most recent in 2016, 2020 and 2023—the two have had strained relations. In the wake of hostilities, social memory of Soviet-era cohabitation is widely repressed through censorship and stigmatization.
Russia and Azerbaijan are de facto and de jure allies in many different aspects, including military. Bilateral relations exist 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 Lachin corridor was a mountain road in Azerbaijan that linked Armenia and Karabakh.
The Madrid Principles were proposed peace settlements of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, proposed by the OSCE Minsk Group. The OSCE Minsk Group was the only internationally agreed body to mediate the negotiations for the peaceful resolution of the conflict prior to the renewed outbreak of hostilities in 2020. Senior Armenian and Azerbaijani officials had agreed on some of the proposed principles but 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.
Clashes on the Armenian–Azerbaijan border (Tavush–Qazakh) and the line of contact between the Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan started on 27 July 2014. Reported casualties of the clashes were some of the highest since the 1994 ceasefire agreement that ended the First Nagorno-Karabakh War.
The Second Nagorno-Karabakh War was an armed conflict in 2020 that took place in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding occupied territories. It was a major escalation of an unresolved conflict over the region, involving Azerbaijan, Armenia and the self-declared Armenian breakaway state of Artsakh. The war lasted for 44 days and resulted in Azerbaijani victory, with the defeat igniting anti-government protests in Armenia. Post-war skirmishes continued in the region, including substantial clashes in 2022.
This is an account of engagements which occurred during the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War, primarily based on announcements from the belligerents. The war has been characterized by the use of armoured warfare; drone warfare, especially the use of Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2 and Israeli loitering munition Harop drones; heavy artillery; rocket attacks; and trench warfare. It has also featured the deployment of cluster munitions, which are banned by the majority of the international community but not by Armenia or Azerbaijan: Azerbaijan states that Armenia has deployed cluster munitions against civilians, and international third parties have confirmed evidence of Azerbaijan's use of cluster munitions against civilian areas of Nagorno-Karabakh. A series of ballistic missile attacks have inflicted mass civilian casualties in Ganja, Azerbaijan, while civilian residences and infrastructure in Stepanakert, and elsewhere have been targeted, inflicting casualties and causing extensive damage.
The Ganja ballistic missile attacks comprise four separate ballistic missile attacks on the city of Ganja, Azerbaijan, in October 2020, carried out by the Armenian military forces during the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War.
The bombardment of Stepanakert began on September 27, 2020, the first day of the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War, and lasted throughout the duration of the war. Stepanakert is the capital and largest city of the self-proclaimed Republic of Artsakh, internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, and was home to 60,000 Armenians on the eve of the war. Throughout the 6-week bombardment, international third parties consistently confirmed evidence of the indiscriminate use of cluster bombs and missiles by Azerbaijan against civilian areas lacking any military installations in Stepanakert; this was denied by Azerbaijan. The prolonged bombardment forced many residents to flee, and the rest to take cover in crowded bomb shelters, leading to a severe outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in the city, infecting a majority of the remaining residents. Throughout the course of the bombardment, 13 residents were killed, 51 were injured, and 4,258 buildings in the city were damaged.
The casualties of the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War, fought between Armenia, the self-proclaimed Republic of Artsakh internationally recognized as the territory of Azerbaijan and Azerbaijan, officially number in the low thousands. According to official figures released by the belligerents, Armenia and Artsakh lost 3,825 troops, with 187 servicemen missing in action, while Azerbaijan lost 2,906 troops, with 6 missing in action. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported the deaths of 541 Syrian fighters or mercenaries fighting for Azerbaijan. However, it is believed that the sides downplayed the number of their own casualties and exaggerated the numbers of enemy casualties and injuries.
Aras Valley campaign was a military operation launched by Azerbaijan against the breakaway Republic of Artsakh along the Aras River in the Azerbaijan–Iran border during the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War.
The Battle of Shusha was the final and decisive battle of the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War, fought between the armed forces of Azerbaijan and the self-proclaimed Republic of Artsakh, militarily supported by Armenia, over the control of the city of Shusha. The battle is considered one of the bloodiest battles of the war.
The following is list of the official reactions to the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War.
Following the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War, and in accordance with 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh ceasefire agreement, Republic of Azerbaijan re-established authority on the part of the territories, previously de facto controlled by the breakaway Republic of Artsakh, which allowed Azerbaijan to begin construction projects and rehabilitation in areas of the Karabakh, many of which had been practically leveled since Azerbaijan lost control of them in the 1990s.
Because of the geography, history, and sensitivities of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, accusations, allegations, and statements have been made of involvement by third-party and international actors during the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War, including in media reports. Azerbaijan has been accused of employing Syrian mercenaries during the war, including reports by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR). There have also been allegations of Kurdish militia from Syria and Iraq fighting on the Armenian side, and although some third-party sources had confirmed it, some publications had considered these claims "dubious". During the war, ethnic Armenian volunteers from the Middle East, Europe, and Latin America fought on Armenian side. Both sides have denied employing mercenaries in the war, but the OHCHR had stated that there were reports about Syrian fighters motivated primarily by private gain fighting on Azerbaijan's side recruited with Turkey's assistance and foreign nationals fighting on Armenian side with motivation being investigated, calling for withdrawal of any mercenaries and related actors from Nagorno-Karabakh.
References
- ↑ "Paradigms of Political Mythologies and Perspectives of Reconciliation in the Case of the Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict | Request PDF". ResearchGate. Retrieved 28 September 2020.
- ↑ Trenin, Dmitriĭ. (2011). Post-imperium : a Eurasian story. Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. ISBN 978-0-87003-345-2. OCLC 758387082.
- ↑ "horizons - Armenia expects Russian support in Karabakh war". 2 October 2013. Archived from the original on 2 October 2013. Retrieved 28 September 2020.
- ↑ "Azerbaijan makes a move in Nakhichevan amid change of guard in Armenia". www.civilnet.am (in Armenian). 31 May 2018. Retrieved 30 September 2020.
- ↑ "Armenian Foreign Ministry: Turkish Military Experts are Fighting Alongside Azerbaijan". hetq . 28 September 2020. Retrieved 29 September 2020.
- ↑ "Armenians accuse Turkey of involvement in conflict with Azerbaijan | Eurasianet". eurasianet.org. Retrieved 29 September 2020.
- ↑ "As Nagorno-Karabakh conflict expands, Israel-Azerbaijan arms trade thrives". Haaretz. Retrieved 25 October 2020.
- ↑ APA.az (28 September 2020). "Vagif Dargahli: "There are mercenaries of Armenian origin from Syria and different countries of the Middle East among the losses of the enemy"". apa.az (in Azerbaijani). Retrieved 30 September 2020.
- ↑ Rehimov, Ruslan (28 September 2020). "Azerbaijan: Armenian-Syrian mercenaries helping Armenia". Anadolu Agency . Retrieved 30 September 2020.
- ↑ "Spokesman Denies Claim That Arms Transferred via Iran to Armenia". en.mfa.gov.ir. Retrieved 30 September 2020.
- ↑ "شایعات مبنی بر کمک ایران به ارمنستان کاملا بی اساس است". www.iribnews.ir. Retrieved 30 September 2020.
- ↑ "İşğaldan azad edilmiş şəhər və kəndlərimiz". Azerbaijan State News Agency (in Azerbaijani). 1 December 2020. Archived from the original on 4 December 2020. Retrieved 1 December 2020.
- ↑ Kucera, Joshua (15 November 2021). "Tension again spikes between Armenia and Azerbaijan". eurasianet.org. Retrieved 17 November 2021.
- ↑ "Russia Mediates Ceasefire Between Armenia and Azerbaijan". MassisPost. 16 November 2021. Retrieved 17 November 2021.
