Azerbaijan is a country in the Caucasus region,situated at the juncture of Eastern Europe and West Asia. Three physical features dominate Azerbaijan:the Caspian Sea,whose shoreline forms a natural boundary to the east;the Greater Caucasus mountain range to the north;and the extensive flatlands at the country's center. About the size of Portugal or the US state of Maine,Azerbaijan has a total land area of approximately 86,600 square kilometers,less than 1% of the land area of the former Soviet Union. Of the three Transcaucasian states,Azerbaijan has the greatest land area. Special administrative subdivisions are the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic,which is separated from the rest of Azerbaijan by a strip of Armenian territory,and the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region,entirely within Azerbaijan. The status of Nagorno-Karabakh is disputed by Armenia,but is internationally recognized as territory of Azerbaijan.
The Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline is a 1,768 kilometres (1,099 mi) long crude oil pipeline from the Azeri–Chirag–Gunashli oil field in the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean Sea. It connects Baku,the capital of Azerbaijan and Ceyhan,a port on the south-eastern Mediterranean coast of Turkey,via Tbilisi,the capital of Georgia. It is the second-longest oil pipeline in the former Soviet Union,after the Druzhba pipeline. The first oil that was pumped from the Baku end of the pipeline reached Ceyhan on 28 May 2006.
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 history of Azerbaijan is understood as the history of the region now forming the Republic of Azerbaijan. Topographically,the land is contained by the southern slopes of the Caucasus Mountains in the north,the Caspian Sea in the east,and the Armenian Highlands in the west. In the south,its natural boundaries are less distinct,and here the country merges with the Iranian Plateau.
Zeyno Baran is a Turkish American scholar on issues ranging from US-Turkey relations to Islamist ideology to energy security in Europe and Asia. She was the Director of the Center for Eurasian Policy and a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute,a think tank based in Washington,D.C. From January 2003 until joining the Hudson Institute in April 2006,she worked as the Director of International Security and Energy Programs for The Nixon Center. Baran also worked as the Director of the Caucasus Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies from 1999 until December 2002.
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 1990s. The Nagorno-Karabakh region is entirely claimed by and partially de facto controlled by the breakaway Republic of Artsakh,but is recognized internationally as part of Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan controls the remainder of the Nagorno-Karabakh region as well as the seven surrounding districts.
Richard Eugene Hoagland is a career ambassador in the United States Department of State. He was Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary in State's Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs from 2013-2015. In the summer of 2016,based at the U.S. Embassy in Amman,Jordan,he was the senior U.S. liaison to the Russian Reconciliation Center at the Russian military base in Latakia,Syria. In 2017 he served as interim U.S. co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group,the group appointed by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to coordinate international peace-making efforts on the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh.
The Trans-Caspian Gas Pipeline is a proposed subsea pipeline between Türkmenbaşy in Turkmenistan,and Baku in Azerbaijan. According to some proposals it would also include a connection between the Tengiz Field in Kazakhstan,and Türkmenbaşy. The Trans-Caspian Gas Pipeline project would transport natural gas from Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan to European Union member countries,circumventing both Russia and Iran. It would do this by feeding the Southern Gas Corridor. This project attracts significant interest since it would connect vast Turkmen gas resources to major consumers Turkey and Europe.
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."
The Armenian cemetery in Julfa was a cemetery near the town of Julfa,in the Nakhchivan exclave of Azerbaijan that originally housed around 10,000 funerary monuments. The tombstones consisted mainly of thousands of khachkars—uniquely decorated cross-stones characteristic of medieval Christian Armenian art. The cemetery was still standing in the late 1990s,when the government of Azerbaijan began a systematic campaign to destroy the monuments.
Official diplomatic relations between the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Islamic Republic of Iran were established following the dissolution of the Soviet Union (1991). Iran and Azerbaijan share,to a large extent,the same history,religion,and culture. The territory of what is now called the Republic of Azerbaijan was only separated from Iran in the first half of the 19th century,through the Russo-Persian Wars. In the area to the North of the river Aras,the territory of the contemporary Republic of Azerbaijan was Iranian territory until it was occupied by Russia. Iran and Azerbaijan are both majority Shia Muslim nations. They have respectively the highest and second highest Shia population percentage in the world,as well as the history of Shi'ism which is rooted in both nations from exactly the same moment in history,whereas the majority of the population of both their neighboring nations are either predominantly Christians or Sunni Muslims. However,there are some tensions between the two countries as its political alignment may vary by degree. The Republic of Azerbaijan has become increasingly pro-Western aligned,and is an ally of Israel,Turkey and the United States while the Islamic Republic of Iran is largely pro-Russian and pro-Chinese aligned due to its hostility towards the U.S. and has been targeted with sanctions. Iranian politicians,like Mohammad Hosseini,have called Azerbaijan an Israeli proxy.
According to the 2012 U.S. Global Leadership Report,53% of Azerbaijanis approve of U.S. leadership,with 27% disapproving and 21% uncertain.
The Republic of Azerbaijan and the European Union (EU) have maintained a positive relationship through the years and have become more closely linked since 1991. Azerbaijan is currently part of the European Neighborhood Policy,the Eastern Partnership and the Council of Europe. The EU is the largest foreign grant donor to and investor in Azerbaijan,both in the government sector and civil society,making available over 600 million EURO of bilateral EU assistance since 1992.
The dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991 brought an end to the Cold War and created an opportunity for establishing bilateral relations between the United States with Armenia and other post-Soviet states as they began a political and economic transformation. The United States recognized the independence of Armenia on 25 December 1991,and opened an embassy in Armenia's capital Yerevan in February 1992.
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.
Stepanakert Airport,referred to as the Khojaly Airport in Azerbaijan,is an airport in the town of Khojaly (Ivanyan),10 kilometers north-east of Stepanakert,the regional capital of the de facto Republic of Artsakh,de jure part of Azerbaijan. The airport,in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region,has been under the control of the republic since 1992. Flights ceased with the escalation of the First Nagorno-Karabakh War in 1990.
Donald Lu is a United States diplomat serving as Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs since 2021. He previously served as both the United States Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan from 2018 to 2021 and the United States Ambassador to Albania from 2015 to 2018. Imran Khan claims he threatened to overthrow Khan's government through a no-confidence vote and had sent a threatening message to him through Pakistan's ambassador to the US Asad Majeed. he threatened the Pakistani government in a March 7,2022,meeting to remove Imran Khan as prime minister of Pakistan over his neutrality on the Russian invasion of Ukraine,according to a classified Pakistani government document obtained by The Intercept.
Russians are the second largest ethnic minority in Azerbaijan and is also the largest Russian community in the South Caucasus and one of the largest outside of Russia. Although in decline,the community still numbers 119,300 people as of 2009. Since their arrival at the beginning of the 19th century,the Russians have played an important role in all spheres of life,particularly during the Czarist and Soviet period,especially in the capital city of Baku.
The political status of Nagorno-Karabakh remained unresolved from its declaration of independence from the Soviet Union on 10 December 1991,to its September 2023 collapse. During Soviet times,it had been an ethnic Armenian autonomous oblast of the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union,a conflict arose between local Armenians who sought to have Nagorno-Karabakh join Armenia and local Azerbaijanis who opposed this.
The following is list of the official reactions to the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War.
