Artsakh, officially the Republic of Artsakh or the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, is a doubly landlocked breakaway state in the South Caucasus whose territory is internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan. Artsakh controls a 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.
Kalbajar District is one of the 66 districts of Azerbaijan. It is located in the west of the country and belongs to the East Zangezur Economic Region. The district borders the districts of Lachin, Khojaly, Agdam, Tartar, Goranboy, Goygol and Dashkasan districts of Azerbaijan, as well as the Gegharkunik and Vayots Dzor provinces of Armenia. Its capital and largest city is Kalbajar. As of 2020, the district had a nominal population of 94,100.
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.
Presidential elections were held in the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic on 19 July 2007. Incumbent president Arkady Ghukasyan was constitutionally barred from seeking a third term and endorsed Bako Sahakyan, who was the head of the National Security Service. Sahakyan was supported by the ruling Democratic Party of Artsakh, two opposition parties and the Armenian government.
In United Nations Security Council resolution 853, adopted unanimously on 29 July 1993, after reaffirming Resolution 822 (1993), the Council expressed its concern at the deteriorating relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan and condemned the seizure of the district of Agdam and other areas of Azerbaijan, demanding a complete withdrawal from the areas by Armenians.
United Nations Security Council resolution 874, adopted unanimously on 14 October 1993, reaffirmed sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Azerbaijani Republic and of all other States in the region, called for the preservation of the ceasefire, cessation of hostilities and withdrawal of forces from recently occupied districts of the Republic of Azerbaijan, and reaffirmed resolutions 822 (1993) and 853 (1993). The Council expressed its concern at "...the conflict in and around the Nagorny Karabakh region of the Azerbaijani Republic, and of the tensions between the Republic of Armenia and the Azerbaijani Republic...", and called upon the parties to observe the ceasefire agreed with by the government of Russia and OSCE Minsk Group.
United Nations Security Council resolution 884, adopted unanimously on 12 November 1993, after reaffirming resolutions 822 (1993), 853 (1993) and 874 (1993), the Council expressed its concern at the continuing conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan in Nagorno-Karabakh and condemned violations of the ceasefire between the parties, particularly the occupation of the Zəngilan district and city of Goradiz. Resolution 884 is the fourth and last of the resolutions adopted by the UN Security Council regarding the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
The 2008 Mardakert clashes began on March 4 after the 2008 Armenian election protests. It involved the heaviest fighting between ethnic Armenian and Azerbaijani forces over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh since the 1994 ceasefire after the First Nagorno-Karabakh War.
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 ethnic Armenian military forces of the breakaway Republic of Artsakh with military support from Armenia, from the end of the First Nagorno-Karabakh War (1988–1994) to 2020, when the territories were returned to Azerbaijani control by military force or handed over in accordance to the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh ceasefire agreement. In Armenia and Artsakh, these territories were frequently referred to as the "security belt" or as the "liberated territories". Subsequently, these territories were included by the de facto authorities of the Artsakh Republic into its administrative-territorial structure.
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.
The Prague Process was a series of negotiations between 2002 and 2007 over Nagorno-Karabakh between the Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministries. It was followed by the Madrid Principles.
United Nations General Assembly Resolution 62/243, titled "The Situation in the Occupied Territories of Azerbaijan", is a resolution of the United Nations General Assembly about the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh, which was adopted on March 14, 2008 at the 62nd session of the General Assembly. It became the seventh United Nations document concerning Nagorno-Karabakh and the third and last United Nations General Assembly document on it.
The Astrakhan Declaration is a Russian-brokered humanitarian agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan, signed on October 27, 2010, in the Russian city of Astrakhan. Concerning the post-war situation in Nagorno-Karabakh, the declaration envisages the exchange of prisoners of war and the return of the bodies of killed servicemen with the assistance of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairmen and the International Committee of the Red Cross. The First Deputy Chairman of the State Duma International Affairs Committee Leonid Slutsky assessed the declaration as "a small advancement in geopolitical sense", which in fact has "a great political significance in the case of Nagorno-Karabakh problem".
Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) Resolution 1416 (2005), titled “The conflict over the Nagorno-Karabakh region dealt with by the OSCE Minsk Conference”, is a resolution of PACE about the situation on occupied territories currently in the possession of Azerbaijan by Armenian military forces, adopted by PACE on January 25, 2005.
The 2012 border clashes between the armed forces of Armenia and Azerbaijan took place in early June. The clashes resulted in casualties on both sides.
The political status of Nagorno-Karabakh has remained unresolved since its declaration of independence from the Soviet Union enacted on 10 December, 1991. During the Soviet Union, it had been an ethnic Armenian autonomous oblast of the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic. Following the disintegration of the USSR, a conflict arose between local Armenians who sought to join Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia, and local Azerbaijanis who opposed this.
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 Line of Contact was the front line which separated Armenian forces and the Azerbaijan Armed Forces from the end of the First Nagorno-Karabakh war until the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh ceasefire agreement.
Relations between Azerbaijan and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) began when Azerbaijan joined OSCE’s predecessor, the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), on January 30, 1992. This was the first European organization Azerbaijan joined. The CSCE transformed into the OSCE shortly afterwards in 1995.
An OSCE Needs Assessment Team in Armenia was deployed by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in the territory of the Republic of Armenia between 21 and 27 October 2022 following the Armenia–Azerbaijan border crisis.
