Armenia and Azerbaijan: The Enduring Conflict Over Nagorno-Karabakh

Armenia and Azerbaijan: The South Caucasus region, a rugged and strategic land bridge between the Black and Caspian Seas, has been a crossroads of empires, cultures, and conflicts for millennia. At the heart of its modern geopolitical turmoil lies the bitter and protracted struggle between Armenia and Azerbaijan. This is not merely a contemporary political dispute but a deep-seated clash of historical narratives, national identities, and raw geopolitical ambition, all centered on a relatively small, mountainous territory known to Armenians as Artsakh and to Azerbaijanis as Qarabağ: Nagorno-Karabakh. The conflict is a complex tapestry woven with threads of ancient history, the arbitrary border-drawing of the Soviet era, the horrors of modern warfare, and the calculated interests of global powers. To understand the present, where Azerbaijan has emerged militarily triumphant, one must first journey into the distant and not-so-distant past, unraveling the claims and counterclaims that have fueled decades of hostility and forever altered the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.

The foundational element of the dispute rests on competing historical territorial claims. Armenian historiography points to the region as one of the ancient heartlands of the Armenian people. They highlight the existence of Armenian kingdoms in the area, such as Artsakh, which was a province of the Kingdom of Armenia as early as the 4th century BC and remained under various Armenian political entities for centuries. The presence of thousands of ancient Armenian monasteries, churches, and khachkars (intricately carved stone crosses) scattered across the landscape is presented as immutable proof of a continuous and deep-rooted Armenian presence. For Armenians, Nagorno-Karabakh is not a negotiable territory; it is the embodiment of their historical sovereignty, cultural resilience, and survival against countless invasions.

Azerbaijani historiography, meanwhile, offers a different narrative. It emphasizes the Turkic presence in the region following migrations in the medieval period and the establishment of various khanates, including the Karabakh Khanate in the 18th century. Azerbaijanis argue that the territory was an integral part of their historical domains long before the Russian Empire expanded into the Caucasus. They view the Armenian claims as a form of historical revisionism that ignores the rich Turkic and Islamic heritage of the region, including its mosques and palaces. This clash of historical memory is not an academic exercise; it forms the bedrock of national legitimacy for both sides. Each generation is taught a version of history where their nation is the indigenous people and the other is a later arrival or occupier, making compromise seem not just politically difficult, but a betrayal of ancestral memory. Armenia and Azerbaijan:

The situation was fundamentally shaped and frozen in the 20th century under Soviet rule. After the brief independence of the Armenian and Azerbaijani republics following the collapse of the Russian Empire, the Red Army swept through the region, sovietizing it. In 1921, Joseph Stalin, then People’s Commissar for Nationalities, allegedly made a decision that would sow the seeds of future conflict: he placed the predominantly Armenian-populated region of Nagorno-Karabakh under the administrative control of the Azerbaijani Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR). This decision, part of a broader Soviet strategy of “divide and rule,” ensured that neither republic would become too powerful or nationalistic, as each would have a disgruntled minority that would require Moscow’s intervention to manage. For the next seven decades, the autonomous oblast (region) of Nagorno-Karabakh existed within Azerbaijan, its Armenian population frequently complaining of cultural and economic discrimination and lobbying Moscow to be transferred to the Armenian SSR—requests that were consistently denied.

The Simmering Tensions of the Soviet Era

For over sixty years, the Soviet iron lid kept the pot of ethnic tension from boiling over. The conflict was managed, but not resolved, from Moscow. The Armenian population of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO) consistently expressed their desire to be united with Armenia. Petitions, letters, and protests were periodically sent to the central Soviet government in Moscow, detailing grievances about underinvestment, the suppression of Armenian language and culture, and the deliberate settlement of ethnic Azerbaijanis in the region to alter its demographic balance. These actions were framed within the context of Soviet legality and the right to self-determination, a principle theoretically enshrined in the Soviet constitution itself. The authorities in Baku, the capital of the Azerbaijani SSR, viewed these movements as seditious threats to the territorial integrity of their republic and countered with their own narratives of historical ownership and administrative fairness.

Life within the NKAO during this period was a study in controlled tension. While Armenians and Azerbaijanis lived as neighbors, often in relative peace, the underlying national identities fostered by the Soviet system’s institutionalization of ethnicity created a latent “us vs. them” dynamic. Inter-ethnic friendships and cooperation existed, but they operated within a framework where one’s nationality was a primary marker of identity. The economic and cultural policies emanating from Baku were perceived by many Armenians as deliberately marginalizing, further fueling resentment. This long-simmering discontent required only a catalyst to erupt into the open, and that catalyst arrived with Mikhail Gorbachev’s policies of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring) in the late 1980s.

Glasnost unleashed long-suppressed national sentiments across the entire Soviet Union. In Nagorno-Karabakh, it provided the opportunity for the local Armenian leadership to officially and publicly reignite their campaign for unification. In February 1988, the regional soviet (council) of the NKAO voted to formally request transfer from the Azerbaijani SSR to the Armenian SSR. This event sent shockwaves through both republics. In Armenia, particularly in the capital Yerevan, massive demonstrations erupted in support of their Karabakh brethren, creating a powerful national movement. In Azerbaijan, the response was one of outrage and perceived betrayal. The situation quickly spiraled into inter-communal violence. Pogroms against Armenian residents in the Azerbaijani city of Sumgait in February 1988 were a horrific turning point, demonstrating that the dispute had moved beyond petitions and into deadly ethnic strife.

The Soviet central government’s response was inept and inconsistent. Moscow initially vacillated, at times seeming to promise consideration of the request and at other times cracking down on the Armenian national movement and reaffirming Azerbaijani control over the region. This indecision effectively allowed the conflict to escalate. Violence begat violence. Expulsions of populations began in earnest, with Armenians fleeing from cities in Azerbaijan and Azerbaijanis fleeing from villages in Armenia and the NKAO. The Soviet state, once the ultimate arbiter of order, was losing its grip. By the time the Soviet Union formally collapsed in 1991, the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh had already escalated into a full-scale war between the newly independent Republic of Armenia and the Republic of Azerbaijan, setting the stage for a bloody and transformative chapter in the history of the Caucasus. Armenia and Azerbaijan:

The First Nagorno-Karabakh War and its Aftermath

The period from 1992 to 1994 was one of immense suffering, chaos, and dramatic military reversal. As the Soviet military withdrew, the new states of Armenia and Azerbaijan, both struggling with nascent institutions and economic collapse, found themselves locked in a brutal war for the territory. Initially, Azerbaijan, with its larger population and greater oil resources, was expected to prevail. However, the war unfolded quite differently. Armenian forces, comprising the Republic of Armenia’s army and highly organized militias from Nagorno-Karabakh itself (often supported by volunteers from the Armenian diaspora), proved to be more motivated, better led, and strategically superior. They secured not only the highland territory of the NKAO but also, crucially, seven adjacent districts of Azerbaijan proper, creating a buffer zone known as the “security belt.”

The capture of these districts—Lachin, Kelbajar, Agdam, Fuzuli, Jabrayil, Qubadli, and Zangilan—was a military masterstroke that ensured a land connection between Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh (via the Lachin corridor) and pushed Azerbaijani artillery out of range of Stepanakert, the Karabakh capital. However, it also created a catastrophic humanitarian crisis. The entire Azerbaijani population of these districts, over half a million people, was forcibly displaced, becoming Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) living in temporary accommodations across Azerbaijan for decades. This act cemented the conflict as one not only over the highland enclave but also over a significant portion of internationally recognized Azerbaijani territory, now under Armenian occupation.

The war concluded with a Russian-brokered ceasefire agreement signed in May 1994 in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. The ceasefire froze the conflict lines in place, leaving the self-proclaimed Republic of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) in control of the territory and its connecting corridor, but at a tremendous cost. An estimated 30,000 people had been killed, and over a million had been displaced from their homes on both sides. The 1994 ceasefire was not a peace treaty; it was merely a halt in active fighting. It created a precarious status quo that would last for twenty-six years, a period often described as “no war, no peace.” This unstable equilibrium defined a generation.

For Armenia and the ethnic Armenian leadership in Stepanakert, the victory was a source of immense national pride. It was seen as a miraculous triumph against overwhelming odds, a testament to national resilience. However, it also created a complacent and unsustainable situation. The captured territories became a geopolitical albatross. The international community, through the United Nations Security Council and the mediating OSCE Minsk Group (co-chaired by France, Russia, and the United States), consistently called for the withdrawal of Armenian forces from the occupied districts surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh as a key principle of international law—the inviolability of borders. Yet, on the ground, the status quo held, with the de facto state of Artsakh developing its own government, military, and institutions, though utterly dependent on political, economic, and military support from Armenia.

For Azerbaijan, the defeat was a profound national humiliation. The loss of Nagorno-Karabakh and the seven districts became the central issue of national politics. The IDP population served as a constant, painful reminder of the unresolved conflict. President Heydar Aliyev, who signed the ceasefire, stabilized the country and began leveraging its vast oil and gas reserves in the Caspian Sea. The revenue from these energy resources, funneled through the state oil company SOCAR and future pipelines like the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, was deliberately used for a singular long-term goal: to build a modern, powerful military capable of reversing the outcome of the first war. Azerbaijan bided its time, engaged in diplomatic negotiations that often seemed fruitless, and steadily built its economic and military power, waiting for the moment to change the facts on the ground. Armenia and Azerbaijan:

The Path to Renewed Conflict and the 2020 War

The “no war, no peace” status quo grew increasingly brittle with each passing year. Skirmishes along the Line of Contact, the heavily fortified border separating the sides, were common. Larger-scale flare-ups occurred in 2016 (the “Four-Day War”) and in July 2020, each time showcasing Azerbaijan’s increasingly sophisticated and deadly weaponry, purchased with its energy wealth from partners like Turkey and Israel. These incidents were previews of a coming full-scale confrontation. Diplomacy, led by the OSCE Minsk Group, had become stagnant, failing to make any tangible progress toward a final settlement. The fundamental incompatibility of the two sides’ positions—Azerbaijan’s demand for the restoration of its territorial integrity versus the Armenian demand for Nagorno-Karabakh’s right to self-determination—proved insurmountable.

The political landscape also shifted dramatically. In Armenia, the 2018 “Velvet Revolution” brought Nikol Pashinyan to power on a wave of popular protest against corruption and the old guard. While initially raising hopes for a fresh approach to peace talks, Pashinyan’s rhetoric, particularly his declaration of “Artsakh is Armenia,” was perceived in Baku as a rejection of the negotiating framework and a hardening of Armenia’s position. In Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, who succeeded his father in 2003, had staked his regime’s legitimacy on eventually reclaiming the lost territories. The combination of a revitalized military, perceived Armenian intransigence, and a favorable international environment created a calculated opportunity for Azerbaijan to launch a major offensive.

On September 27, 2020, the simmering conflict exploded into the 44-Day Second Nagorno-Karabakh War. Azerbaijan initiated a large-scale military operation along the entire front, but this war was nothing like the first. Azerbaijan had meticulously prepared, investing heavily in modern military technology, particularly unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or drones. Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2s and Israeli-made Harop loitering munitions proved devastatingly effective, decimating Armenian tanks, artillery, air defenses, and troop formations. This drone-dominated warfare gave Azerbaijan overwhelming superiority in intelligence, surveillance, and strike capability.

Despite fierce resistance from Armenian and Artsakh forces, who fought tenaciously in the mountains, Azerbaijan made steady and significant gains. One by one, they recaptured the southern districts of the buffer zone: Fuzuli, Jabrayil, Zangilan, and Qubadli. The strategic crown jewel was the recapture of the city of Shusha (known as Shushi to Armenians), a cultural center perched on a mountaintop overlooking Stepanakert. Its fall on November 8 effectively placed the capital of Nagorno-Karabakh within range of Azerbaijani artillery and made the Armenian defensive position untenable.

The war was brought to a halt by a trilateral ceasefire statement signed on November 9, 2020, by President Aliyev of Azerbaijan, Prime Minister Pashinyan of Armenia, and President Putin of Russia. The agreement was a crushing defeat for Armenia and a total victory for Azerbaijan. Its terms included:

• Azerbaijan keeping all the territorial gains it made during the war.
• The return of the remaining occupied districts (Agdam, Kelbajar, and Lachin) to Azerbaijani control in phases.
• The deployment of approximately 2,000 Russian peacekeeping troops along the Lachin Corridor and in Nagorno-Karabakh to monitor the ceasefire.
• Guarantees for the security of traffic along the Lachin Corridor, which would remain the connection between Armenia and the rump Nagorno-Karabakh territory.
• The creation of new transport links, including a corridor through Armenia connecting Azerbaijan to its Nakhchivan exclave (the Zangezur Corridor).

The human cost was immense. Thousands of soldiers were killed on both sides, and the conflict displaced tens of thousands of ethnic Armenians from the territories retaken by Azerbaijan during the fighting.

The Geopolitical Chessboard: Regional and Global Players

The Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict has never been a purely bilateral affair. Its location at the crossroads of strategic interests has consistently drawn in regional and global powers, each with their own agendas, which have profoundly influenced the conflict’s trajectory and outcome. Armenia and Azerbaijan:

Russia has traditionally been the primary external power in the region. It has a military base in Armenia and a mutual defense pact through the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). However, its relationship is often described as that of a “complicated ally.” While it has supported Armenia militarily, it has also sold advanced weapons to Azerbaijan, maintaining a delicate balance that allows it to present itself as the indispensable mediator. The deployment of Russian peacekeepers following the 2020 war was a classic Russian strategy: intervening to stop a war on its terms and establishing a long-term military presence that ensures Moscow remains the ultimate arbiter of security in the South Caucasus. The conflict allows Russia to keep both states in its orbit and to counter the influence of Turkey and the West.

Turkey‘s role is unequivocally pro-Azerbaijani, rooted in the motto “one nation, two states,” reflecting the deep ethnic, linguistic, and cultural ties between Turks and Azerbaijanis. Ankara provided crucial political and military support to Baku during the 2020 war, including the alleged deployment of Syrian mercenaries and the critical use of its drone technology. Turkey’s assertive involvement marked a significant expansion of its influence in a region historically dominated by Russia, turning the conflict into a proxy struggle between Ankara and Moscow. Following the war, Turkey has cemented its partnership with Azerbaijan, participating in monitoring the ceasefire and pushing for the realization of new transport corridors that would enhance its own connectivity to Central Asia.

The West, primarily represented by the United States and France as co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, has seen its influence wane. While historically seen as more sympathetic to the Armenian cause due to a powerful diaspora, Western engagement has often been inconsistent and lacked the leverage that either Russia (military presence) or Turkey (full-throated support) could bring to bear. The EU, led by Council President Charles Michel, has attempted to step into the diplomatic vacuum post-2020, hosting meetings between Aliyev and Pashinyan to discuss border delimitation and a potential peace treaty. However, these efforts have been hampered by a lack of enforcement mechanisms and renewed outbreaks of violence.

Iran and Israel also play intriguing roles. Israel is a major supplier of advanced weaponry to Azerbaijan, viewing the partnership as crucial for energy security and as a strategic counter to Iran. Iran, which shares a long border with both Armenia and Azerbaijan, is wary of the rise of a strong, Turkish-influenced Azerbaijan on its northern flank, fearing it could fuel separatism among its own large Azerbaijani minority. Tehran has traditionally maintained correct relations with Armenia, seeing it as a necessary buffer and a transit route to circumvent Azerbaijan.

This complex interplay of external interests makes a lasting peace agreement incredibly difficult to achieve. Any settlement must navigate not only the diametrically opposed goals of Yerevan and Baku but also the competing strategic designs of Moscow, Ankara, Brussels, and Washington. Armenia and Azerbaijan:

The Lachin Corridor Blockade and the Final Offensive

The fragile peace established by the November 2020 ceasefire was tested repeatedly in the following years with periodic border clashes between Armenia and Azerbaijan proper. However, the most critical pressure point became the Lachin Corridor, the lifeline connecting Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia. In December 2022, Azerbaijani civilians, claiming to be environmental activists protesting illegal mining, blockaded the only road running through the corridor. This blockade, which most observers agreed was orchestrated by the Azerbaijani government, lasted for over nine months, creating a dire humanitarian crisis for the 120,000 ethnic Armenians still living in Nagorno-Karabakh.

The blockade prevented the import of essential goods, including food, medicine, and fuel. It also cut off natural gas and electricity supplies for extended periods, leaving the population to face the harsh winter without heat or reliable power. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) became the only conduit for limited medical evacuations and supplies, but it was unable to meet the overwhelming need. The stated goal of the blockade, from Baku’s perspective, was to dismantle the remaining structures of the “separatist regime” and force the integration of the Karabakh Armenians into Azerbaijan. It was a strategy of slow-motion strangulation, designed to make life unsustainable and compel either surrender or mass exodus. Armenia and Azerbaijan:

Despite international calls, including from the International Court of Justice (ICJ), for Azerbaijan to ensure free movement through the corridor, the blockade remained in effect. The Russian peacekeepers, tasked with securing the road, proved unable or unwilling to break the impasse, a clear sign of Russia’s diminished capacity and focus following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The crisis highlighted the complete failure of the 2020 ceasefire arrangement to provide lasting security for the Karabakh Armenians and set the stage for the final act.

On September 19, 2023, Azerbaijan launched a new, massive military offensive against the depleted defenses of the Republic of Artsakh. Dubbed an “anti-terrorist operation,” it involved artillery shelling and drone strikes. The outcome was a foregone conclusion. Outgunned, isolated, and abandoned, the Armenian forces in Karabakh agreed to a ceasefire brokered by Russian peacekeepers within 24 hours. The terms were a complete surrender: the disarming of all Armenian military units and the dissolution of the Republic of Artsakh itself. Armenia and Azerbaijan:

This military action triggered a catastrophic and rapid exodus. Fearing reprisals, ethnic cleansing, and a future under Azerbaijani rule after decades of conflict, almost the entire ethnic Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh—over 100,000 people—fled their ancestral homeland within a week, pouring into Armenia as refugees. The decades-long conflict had reached its brutal, logical conclusion: a military victory for Azerbaijan resulted in the effective depopulation of the territory of its Armenian inhabitants, resolving the demographic dispute through force and fear rather than negotiated coexistence.

The Current Landscape and the Quest for Peace

The events of September 2023 have fundamentally reset the conflict. With the de facto dissolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh Armenian entity and the mass exodus of its population, the central territorial object of the dispute has, for now, been removed from the equation. The focus has now shifted to the bilateral relationship between Armenia and Azerbaijan and the negotiation of a comprehensive peace treaty to formally end the war. Armenia and Azerbaijan:

The key outstanding issues in these negotiations include:

• Mutual Recognition of Territorial Integrity: Azerbaijan demands that Armenia formally recognize its territorial integrity within its Soviet-era borders, which include Nagorno-Karabakh.
• Border Delimitation and Demarcation: The international border between the two countries remains largely un-demarcated since the Soviet collapse, leading to periodic incursions and tensions. A process to formally map and agree on the border is a critical step for stability.
• The Zangezur Corridor: Azerbaijan and Turkey continue to push for the establishment of an extraterritorial corridor through Armenia’s Syunik province to connect Azerbaijan to Nakhchivan. Armenia rejects this, fearing a loss of sovereignty, and instead proposes opening existing roads for normal cross-border travel under its jurisdiction.
• Unblocking Regional Transport Links: A broader goal is the reopening of all economic and transport links in the region, which has been a key point of the 2020 ceasefire and could bring significant economic benefits to all parties, including Georgia and Iran.

The path forward is fraught with difficulty. While both sides express a desire for peace, deep-seated mistrust and the raw trauma of recent events, particularly for Armenia, make concessions politically dangerous. Azerbaijan is negotiating from a position of overwhelming strength, while Armenia, under Prime Minister Pashinyan, is attempting to secure a peace deal that safeguards its sovereignty and provides security guarantees, despite facing fierce domestic criticism from those who view his government as capitulating to Azerbaijan.

The international context remains crucial. Russia’s role as a security guarantor has been severely undermined by its distraction in Ukraine and its failure to prevent the 2023 offensive and exodus. The European Union and the United States are now more actively engaged in mediating talks, but their leverage is limited. The future of the South Caucasus hangs in the balance, between the prospect of a historic peace that unlocks regional cooperation and the danger of a new phase of conflict along the now-direct Armenia and Azerbaijan: border.

The Human Cost: Refugees, Displacement, and Cultural Erasure

Beyond the geopolitics and military strategy, the conflict’s most enduring legacy is the profound human suffering it has inflicted. For over three decades, it has created waves of refugees and Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), tearing communities apart and scarring generations.

The first major wave occurred during the First Nagorno-Karabakh War in the late 1980s and early 1990s. This included:

• Azerbaijanis fleeing from Armenia and from the Nagorno-Karabakh region itself as it came under Armenian control.
• Armenians fleeing from pogroms in cities like Sumgait and Baku in Azerbaijan.
• The mass expulsion of over half a million Azerbaijanis from the seven districts surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh that were occupied by Armenian forces.

These populations lived in a state of limbo for nearly thirty years. In Azerbaijan, IDP camps and settlements became a permanent feature of the landscape, and the government’s official policy was one of eventual return. The recovery of these territories in the 2020 war allowed for the beginning of a monumental “Great Return” program, with Baku investing billions in rebuilding destroyed cities like Agdam and Fuzuli from the ground up to resettle Azerbaijanis. However, this process is slow and fraught with the challenges of demining and creating viable economic opportunities.

The tables turned catastrophically in 2023. The flight of over 100,000 ethnic Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh following Azerbaijan’s offensive represents one of the most intense and rapid refugee crises of the 21st century. These people left behind their homes, history, and heritage, arriving in Armenia with only what they could carry. The Armenian government and civil society have mounted a massive effort to provide housing, food, and medical care, but the integration of such a large number of traumatized people into a small country with limited resources poses an enormous long-term challenge.

Group	Estimated Number	Time Period	Primary Cause
Azerbaijani IDPs	600,000+	1991-1994	First Nagorno-Karabakh War
Armenian Refugees from Azerbaijan	300,000+	1988-1991	Inter-ethnic violence & pogroms
Armenian Refugees from NK	100,000+	September 2023	2023 Azerbaijani offensive

Table showing the major displacement waves caused by the conflict.

Another grave concern is the fate of Armenian cultural heritage in the territories now under Azerbaijani control. Nagorno-Karabakh is home to thousands of medieval Armenian churches, monasteries, and cemeteries. There is widespread fear, based on the documented destruction of Armenian cultural sites (like the cemeteries in Julfa, Nakhchivan) in the past, that Azerbaijan will systematically erase or alter these sites to remove evidence of centuries of Armenian presence. International organizations like UNESCO have called for access to monitor and protect this heritage, but the situation remains precarious, and the potential loss would be a tragedy for global cultural history

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Conclusion:

The conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh has entered a new, somber, and uncertain chapter. The military phase appears to be over, with Azerbaijan having achieved its primary objective of reclaiming the territory it lost in the 1990s. The mass exodus of Armenians has, for now, removed the demographic dimension of the problem, simplifying the issue from Baku’s perspective to one of pure territorial sovereignty.