area 11 400 km²/4400 sq mi. Autonomous region in Azerbaijan, established in 1923 after the reversal (on Stalin's instigation) of a decision taken in 1921 by the Bureau of Caucasian Affairs to unite the region with Armenia; administrative centre, Stepanakert; in Karabakhsky and Murovdag ranges of the Caucasus; climate ranges from ?10°C in winter to 25°C in summer; majority of population Armenian, leading to claims by Armenia for its incorporation into that republic; opposed by Azerbaijan and former Soviet Union, leading to military conflict from 1988 onwards; ceasefire agreement signed, 1994; mineral springs, agriculture, horticulture, livestock, marble, minerals, sericulture, vineyards.
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Լեռնային Ղարաբաղ Dağlıq Qarabağ Nagorno-Karabakh |
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Anthem: Azat ou Ankakh Artsakh ("Free and Independent Artsakh") |
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| Capital | Stepanakert (Khankendi) | ||||
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| Official languages | Armenian | ||||
| Government | Unrecognized | ||||
| - President | Arkady Ghoukasyan | ||||
| - Prime Minister | Anushavan Danielyan | ||||
| Independence | from Azerbaijan | ||||
| - Referendum | December 10, 1991 | ||||
| - Proclaimed | January 6, 1992 | ||||
| - Recognition | none | ||||
| Area | |||||
| - Total |
4,400 km² 1,699 sq mi |
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| Population | |||||
| - 2002 estimate | 145,000 (n/a) | ||||
| - Density |
?/km² (n/a) ?/sq mi |
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| Currency | Dram (Armenian) (AMD) | ||||
| Time zone | (UTC+4) | ||||
| - Summer (DST) | (UTC+5) | ||||
| Internet TLD | |||||
| Calling code |
+374 97 (Karabakh Telecome GSM) |
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Nagorno-Karabakh is a de facto independent republic in the South Caucasus, officially part of the Republic of Azerbaijan, about 270 kilometres (170 miles) west of the Azerbaijani capital of Baku, and very close to the border with Armenia.
The predominantly Armenian region became a source of dispute between the republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan when both countries gained independence from the Russian Empire in 1918. After the Soviet Union expanded in to the South Caucasus, it established the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO) within the Azerbaijan SSR in 1923. On December 10, 1991, as the Soviet Union was collapsing, a referendum held in the NKAO and the neighboring district of Shahumian resulted in a declaration of independence from Azerbaijan as the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR), which remains unrecognized by any international organization or country, including Armenia.
In the final years before the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the region was again a source of dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan, culminating in the Nagorno-Karabakh War. Since the end of the war in 1994, most of Nagorno-Karabakh and several regions of Azerbaijan around it remain under Armenian military control.
The names for the region in the various local languages all translate to "mountainous Karabakh", or "mountainous black garden":
Armenian: Լեռնային Ղարաբաղ, transliterated Lernayin Gharabagh Azerbaijani: Dağlıq Qarabağ, or Yuxarı Qarabağ (meaning "upper Karabakh") Russian: Нагорный Карабах, transliterated Nagornyj KarabakhThis is not confined only to the local languages of the region;
Politics
Politics of Nagorno Karabakh take place in a framework of a presidential representative democratic republic, whereby the President of Nagorno Karabakh is both head of state and head of government, and of a pluriform multi-party system.
The NKR has close relations with the Armenian government and maintains the Nagorno-Karabakh Defense Army as its own uniformed military force.
Divisions
The Nagorno-Karabakh Republic has declared several divisions within it; This is a comparative table of the current divisions declared by the government of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic and the corresponding rayons of Azerbaijan. font-size: 95%;">
| Nagorno-Karabakh division | Azerbaijani rayon |
|---|---|
| Askeran | Khankendi (city), Khojali |
| Hadrut | southern Khojavend |
| Martakert | eastern Kalbajar and western Tartar |
| Martuni | northern Khojavend |
| Shahumian* | Naftalan (city), southern Goranboy |
| Shushi | Shusha (city), Shusha |
The Nagorno-Karabakh Republic claims Shahumian, which was not part of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast. Representatives from Shahumian declared independence along with Nagorno-Karabakh, and the proclamation of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic includes the Shahumian region within its borders.
Geography
The region has a total area of 4,400 square kilometres (1,699 sq mi) and is surrounded entirely by the rest of Azerbaijan;
The current borders of Nagorno-Karabakh, established in Soviet times, resemble a kidney bean with the indentation on the east side. font-size: 95%;">
| Year | Armenian | Azeri | Russian | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1923 | 94% | N/A | N/A | At the time of when it was an autonomous oblast; |
| 1979 | 80.5% | 18.1% | 0.9% | Figures from the 1970 Soviet census |
| 1988 | 75% | 23% | N/A | Armenian figure widely quoted by media sources; |
| 2001 | 95% | Under 1% | N/A | Other minorities currently living in the region include Assyrians, Greeks, and Kurds |
History
The region of Nagorno-Karabakh falls within the lands occupied by peoples known to modern archaeologists as the Kura-Araxes culture, who lived between the two rivers bearing those names.
After the Russian Revolution of 1917, Karabakh became part of the Transcaucasian Federation, but this soon dissolved into separate Armenian, Azerbaijani, and Georgian states. In February 1920, the Karabakh National Council preliminarily agreed to Azerbaijani jurisdiction, while Armenians elsewhere in Karabakh continued the guerrilla fighting, never accepting the agreement.
Over the next few years 1918-1920 there was a short war between Azerbaijan and Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh. In April of 1920, while the Azerbaijani army was locked in Karabakh fighting local Armenian forces, Azerbaijan was taken over by Bolsheviks. In 1921, Armenia and Georgia were also taken over by the Bolsheviks who, in order to attract public support, promised they would allot Karabakh to Armenia, along with Nakhchivan and Zangezur (a strip separating Nakhichevan from Azerbaijan proper). Needing to appease Turkey, Moscow agreed to a division under which Zangezur would be under the control of Armenia, while Karabakh and Nakhchivan would be under the control of Azerbaijan. As a result, the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast was established within the Azerbaijan SSR on July 7, 1923.
On February 20, 1988, Armenian deputies to the National Council of Nagorno-Karabakh voted to unify that region with Armenia. The Soviet policy backfired, however, when a joint session of the Armenian Supreme Soviet and the National Council, the legislative body of Nagorno-Karabakh, proclaimed the unification of Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia.
In a December 1991 referendum, boycotted by local Azerbaijanis, Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh approved the creation of an independent state. A Soviet proposal for enhanced autonomy for Nagorno-Karabakh within Azerbaijan satisfied neither side, and a land war subsequently erupted between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
The struggle over Nagorno-Karabakh escalated after both Armenia and Azerbaijan attained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. At that stage the Government of Azerbaijan for the first time during the entire duration of the conflict recognised Nagorno-Karabakh as a third party of the war and started direct negotiations with the Karabakhi authorities.
Current situation
Today, Nagorno-Karabakh is a de facto independent state, calling itself the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic . The politics of Armenia and the de-facto Karabakh republic are so intermingled that a former president of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, Robert Kocharian, became first the prime minister (1997) and then the president of Armenia (1998 to the present).
Still, successive Armenian governments have resisted internal pressure to unite the two, fearing reprisals from Azerbaijan and from the international community, that still considers Nagorno-Karabakh part of Azerbaijan. In his case study of Eurasia, Dov Lynch of the Institute for Security Studies of WEU believes that "Karabakh's independence allows the new Armenian state to avoid the international stigma of aggression, despite the fact that Armenian troops fought in the war between 1991-94 and continue to man the Line of Contact between Karabakh and Azerbaijan." Azerbaijan's position has been that Armenian troops withdraw from all areas of Azerbaijan outside Nagorno-Karabakh, and that all displaced persons be allowed to return to their homes before the status of Karabakh can be discussed. Armenia does not recognize Nagorno-Karabakh as being legally part of Azerbaijan, arguing that because the region declared independence at the same time that Azerbaijan became an independent state, both of them are equally successor states of the Soviet Union. The Armenian government insists that the government of Nagorno-Karabakh be part of any discussions on the region's future, and rejects ceding occupied territory or allowing refugees to return prior to talks on the region's status.
Representatives of Armenia, Azerbaijan, France, Russia and the United States met in Paris and in Key West, Florida, in the Spring of 2001. Reportedly, one of the suggestions put forward was the withdrawal of the occupying forces from the Azeri territories adjacent to Nagorno-Karabakh, and holding referenda (plebiscites) in Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan proper regarding the future status of the region. Earlier, Armenian President Kocharian announced that he was ready to "continue dialogue with Azerbaijan for the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and with Turkey on establishing relations without any preconditions."
International status
The sovereign status of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic is not recognized by any state, including Armenia. Three United Nations Security Council Resolutions (853, 874, and 884) and United Nations General Assembly resolutions 49/13 and 57/298 refer to Nagorno-Karabakh as a region of Azerbaijan. According to a report prepared by British parliamentarian and rapporteur David Atkinson, presented to Political Affairs Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), "the borders of Azerbaijan were internationally recognised at the time of the country being recognised as independent state in 1991," and "the territory of Azerbaijan included the Nagorno-Karabakh region."
The latest resolution, #1416, adopted by PACE (), stated that "Considerable parts of the territory of Azerbaijan are still occupied by Armenian forces, and separatist forces are still in control of the Nagorno-Karabakh region".
The resolution further stated: "The Assembly reiterates that the occupation of foreign territory by a member state constitutes a grave violation of that state’s obligations as a member of the Council of Europe and reaffirms the right of displaced persons from the area of conflict to return to their homes safely and with dignity”."
The Council of Europe called on the Nagorno-Karabakh de facto authorities to refrain from staging one-sided "local self-government elections" in Nagorno-Karabakh. They recalled that following the 1991–1994 armed conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, a substantial part of the region's population was forced to flee their homes and are still living as displaced persons in those countries or as refugees abroad. Indeed, the 1990 Soviet law titled 'Law of the USSR Concerning the Procedure of Secession of a Soviet Republic from the USSR," provides that the secession of a Soviet republic from the body of the USSR allows an autonomous region and compactly settled minority regions in the same republic's territory also to trigger its own process of independence.'
The Background Paper on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict prepared by Directorate General of Political Affairs of the Council of Europe, on the other hand, states, "The Armenian side maintains that the N-K independence referendum was conducted in accordance with the USSR law on the "Procedure for Solving Issues of Secession of a Soviet Republic from the USSR" of 3 April 1990.
The OSCE Minsk Group has allowed the "leadership of Nagorny Karabakh", as well as Armenia and Azerbaijan, to participate in the peace process as "parties to the conflict," and the Azerbaijani community of the region--as an "interested party".
Human rights
The Nagorno Karabakh conflict has resulted in the displacement of 528,000 (this figure does not include new born children of these IDPs) Azerbaijanis from Armenian occupied territories including Nagorno Karabakh, and 220,000 Azeris, 18,000 Kurds and 3,500 Russians fled from Armenia to Azerbaijan from 1988 to 1989.
The Azerbaijani government has been unwilling to integrate the IDP's into the rest of the population as this could be interpreted as acceptance of the permanent loss of Nagorno-Karabakh.
280,000 persons—virtually all ethnic Armenians who fled Azerbaijan during the 1988–1993 war over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh—were living in refugee-like circumstances in Armenia.
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