Nagorno-Karabakh

Nagorno-Karabakh is a de jure region of Azerbaijan and a de facto self-proclaimed independent republic in the South Caucasus, located about 270 km (about 170 mi.) west of Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan. The region is predominantly ethnic Armenian, and is under military control of Armenia. The local Armenian population declared independence from Azerbaijan on December 10th, 1991 and declared the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR). The NKR's sovereign status is not recognized by any country or international organization in the world.

Name

In Armenian it is called Template:Hayeren, (translit. Lernayin Gharabagh). In Azerbaijani, Dağlıq Qarabağ or Yuxarı Qarabağ, literally "mountainous black garden" or "upper black garden". In Russian: Нагорный Карабах, translit. Nagornyy Karabakh). It is often referred to by Armenians as Artsakh (Armenian: Template:Hayeren). In Persian: قره باغ . The word "Karabakh" originated from Turkic "kara" (meaning "black") and Persian "bagh (باغ)" (meaning "garden"), literally meaning "black garden." ^[2] The name first appears in Georgian and Persian sources in 13 - 14th centuries ^[3]. The related term Karabagh [kærəba:] is described by the Oxford English Dictionary as being used to denote a kind of patterned rug originally produced in the area.

International status

Geography

The region has a total area of 4,400 km², and in 1989, it had a population of 192,000. The population at that time was mainly Armenian (76%) and Azerbaijanis (23%), with Russian and Kurdish minorities. The capital is Stepanakert (Azerbaijani: Xankəndi). Its other major city, today lying partially in ruins, is Shusha (Armenian: Shushi).

The current borders of Nagorno-Karabakh, established in Soviet times, resemble a kidney bean. The bean, whose indentation is on the right side, has very tall mountain ridges along the northern edge, along the west, and the south is just plain mountainous. The part near the indentation of the kidney bean itself is a relatively flat valley, with the two edges of the bean, the provinces of Martakert and Martuni (corresponding to parts of the Azerbaijani rayons of Kalbacar, Tartar and Xocavand), having flat lands as well. Other flatter valleys exist around the Sarsang reservoir, Hadrut, and the south. Much of Nagorno-Karabakh is forested, especially the mountains.

Regions

Comparative table of current de facto regions within Nagorno-Karabakh and correspondences with regions during Azerbaijani control of the region. ^[4]

Armenian province	Azerbaijani rayon
Askeran	Xankandi, Xocali
Hadrut	part of Xocavand
Martakert	parts of Kalbacar, Tartar
Martuni	remainder of Xocavand
Shahumian	part of Naftalan
Shushi	Shusha

History

From origins to 1917

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. Little is known of the ancient history of the region, primarily because of the scarcity of historical sources. Local traditions are held by many peoples in the area that those two river valleys were among the first ever to be settled by Noah's descendants ^[5]. A son of Japheth named Aran is credited with being the first to establish a nation here. Zoroastrian traditions also point to this region as being the earliest sacred homeland of the Medes, their ancestors.

Jewelry has been found within the present confines of Nagorno-Karabakh inscribed with the cuneiform name of Adad-Nirari, King of Assyria (c. 800 BC). This is an indicator that these mountains may have been within the Assyrian sphere of influence at this time, or at least on a trade route ^{[citation needed]}. Also, near the village of Tsovk, an inscription of Sardur II, King of Urartu (763-734 BC), was found, proving that his troops penetrated as far as that land, that the inscription referred to as "Urtekhini".

It seems that the state of Mannae, based in the Urmia region, expanded as far as the Kura, and contested the region with Urartu beginning around 800 BC, until they were destroyed by the Medes in 616 BC. It is uncertain whether the Mannaeans ever penetrated as far as present-day Nagorno-Karabakh.

At various times in antiquity that are difficult to establish with precision at this time, this area was part of Aghbania, or Caucasian Albania, and at others, of Greater Armenia. It was also part of a province of Parthia (ca. 250 BC), called Ardan, and another ancient name is Artsakh. In 95 BC, it was conquered by Tigranes II, ruler of the Kingdom of Armenia.

File:Tigranes II coin.jpg

The emperor Tigranes II depicted on an ancient Armenian coin

Following the defeat of Tigranes II at the hands of the Romans in 66 BC, Albanians regained Artsakh. Ancient Albanians and Armenians alternated control over the territory until the early 4th century, when the Albanians managed to reclaim Artsakh; eventually, in 387, it became a part of Aghbania again.

Christianity first came to Aghbania with the mission of St Eliseus in the 1st century. Christianity was widely accepted in the 5th century, after Saint Gregory the Illuminator converted and baptized Albanian king Urnayr. In 488, following a church assembly near Aluan (situated in present-day Karabakh), Christianity become the official religion in Aghbania.

In the 7th and 8th centuries, the region was invaded by Arabs, who pillaged it and converted a portion of the population to Islam. Under the Arabs, the Albanian church was subordinated to the Armenian Church, resulting in the local Albanian population gradually becoming more like Armenians in terms of religion, culture, and language. After the 8th century, Albania diminished in size, and came to exist only as the Khachin principality in Artsakh.

File:Karabach gandzasar.jpg

The Gandzasar monastery.

In the 15th century, the territory of Karabakh was part of the states of Kara Koyunlu and then Ak Koyunlu. In the early 16th century, after the fall of the Ak-Koyunlu state, control of the region passed to the Safavid dynasty of Iran, that created a Ganje-Karabakh province (beglarbekdom, bəylərbəyliyi); and in the mid-18th century, the Karabakh khanate was formed. Karabakh passed to Imperial Russia by the Treaty of Gulistan in 1813, before the rest of Transcaucasia was incorporated into the Empire in 1828 by the Treaty of Turkmenchay. In 1822, the Karabakh khanate was dissolved, and the area became part of the Russian province that later formed Azerbaijan.

Soviet era

File:Govhar-Aga.jpg

The Govhar-Aga mosque in Shusha.

After the Russian Revolution of 1917, Karabakh became part of the Transcaucasian Federation, but this soon dissolved into separate Armenian, Azerbaijani, and Georgian states. Azerbaijan claimed sovereignty over the province, and sought to secure its claims with the help of the Ottoman Empire. Despite the fact that the Ottomans were defeated in the course of World War I, Karabakh's de facto ownership by Azerbaijan was provisionally recognized in 1919 by the Allies, who recognized Khosrov-bey Sultanov (appointed by the Azerbaijan government) as general-governor of Karabakh. The Allies decided that the ultimate status of Karabakh was not determined, and it was pending final decision in Paris Peace Conference. Whereas Azerbaijan commended this decision as a recognition of its rights to the territory, the Armenian side criticized it, arguing that this decision was made because of the Allies' economic interests in the oil fields near Azerbaijan's capital, Baku.

In 1920, Transcaucasia was 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). However, Moscow also had far-reaching plans concerning Turkey -- hoping that it would, with a little help from Russia, develop along Communist lines. Needing to appease Turkey, Moscow agreed to a division that left Zangezur to Armenia, while leaving Karabakh and Nakhchivan in Azerbaijan. As a result, the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region was established within the Azerbaijan SSR in 1923. Most of the decisions on the transfer of the territories, and the establishment of new autonomous entities, were made under pressure from Stalin, who is still blamed by both Azerbaijanis and Armenians for arbitrary decisions made against their national interests.

With the beginning of the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the late 1980's and early 1990's, the question of Nagorno-Karabakh reemerged. Complaining about "forced Azerification" of the region, the majority Armenian population, with ideological and material support from Armenia, started a movement to transfer it to Armenia.

On February 20, 1988, Armenian deputies to the National Council of Nagorno-Karabakh voted to unify that region with Armenia. On 24 February 1988, a direct confrontation between Azerbaijanis and Armenians near Askeran (in Nagorno-Karabakh, on the road Stepanakert - Agdam) degenerated into a skirmish. During the clashes, which left about 50 Armenians wounded, a local policeman, reportedly an Armenian, shot dead two Azerbaijanis – Bakhtiyar Guliyev, 16 and Ali Hajiyev, 23. On 27 February 1988, while speaking on Central TV, the USSR Deputy Prosecutor General A. Katusev mentioned the nationality of those killed. Within hours, a pogrom against Armenian residents began in the city of Sumgait, 25 km north of Baku, where many Azerbaijani refugees resided. The pogrom lasted for three days. The exact figures for the dead are disputed. The official investigation reported 32 deaths - 6 Azerbaijanis and 26 Armenians^[6], while the US Library of Congress places the number of Armenian victims at over 100^[7].

A similar attack on Azerbaijanis occurred in the Armenian towns of Spitak^[8], Gugark^[9] and others. Azerbaijani sources put the number of Azerbaijanis killed in pogroms in Armenia at 216, including 57 women, 5 infants and 18 children of different ages. Armenians dispute these figures^[10]. Large numbers of refugees left Armenia and Azerbaijan as pogroms began against the minority populations of the respective countries. In the fall of 1989, intensified interethnic conflict in and around Nagorno-Karabakh led Moscow to grant Azerbaijani authorities greater leeway in controlling that region. 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 mid-January 1990, Azerbaijani protesters in Baku went on a rampage against remaining Armenians. Moscow intervened, sending army troops, who violently suppressed the APF and installed Mutalibov as president. The troops reportedly killed 122 Azerbaijanis in quelling the uprising, and Gorbachev denounced the APF for striving to establish an Islamic republic. These events further alienated the Azerbaijani population from Moscow and ACP rule. 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.

Post-Soviet era

Ethnic groups of the region in 1995. (See entire map)

The struggle over Nagorno-Karabakh escalated after both Armenia and Azerbaijan attained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. In the post-Soviet power vacuum, military action between Azerbaijan and Armenia was heavily influenced by the Russian military. Extensive Russian military support was exposed by the Head of the Standing Commission of the Russian Duma, General Lev Rokhlin, who was subsequently killed by his wife in unknown circumstances. He had claimed that munitions (worth 1 bil. US dollars) had been illegally transferred to Armenia during 1993-1996 ^[11]. Russian Minister of Defense Igor Rodionov in his letter to Aman Tuleyev, Minister of cooperation with CIS countries, said a Defense Ministry commission had determined that a large quantity of Russian weapons, including 84 T-72 tanks and 50 armored personnel carriers, were illegally transferred to Armenia in 1994 – 96 for free and without authorization by the Russian government^[12]. According to The Washington Times, Western intelligence sources said the weapons played a crucial role in Armenia's seizure of large areas of Azerbaijan. Russia's military support for Armenia was apparently aimed to force pro-Western Azerbaijan and its strategic oil reserves into Russia's orbit ^[13]. Both sides used mercenaries. Mercenaries from Russia and other CIS countries fought on Armenian side^[14], and some of them were killed or captured by Azerbaijan army^[15]. According to The Wall Street Journal, Azerbaijani President Heydar Aliev recruited thousands of mujahedeen fighters from Afghanistan (as well as mercenaries from Iran and elsewhere) and brought in even more Turkish officers to organize his army ^[16]. The Washington Post discovered that Azerbaijan hired more than 1,000 guerrilla fighters from Afghanistan's radical prime minister, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. Meanwhile, Turkey and Iran supplied trainers, and the republic also was aided by 200 Russian officers who taught basic tactics to Azerbaijani soldiers in the northwest city of Barda ^[17]. Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev personaly engaged Armenian forces in NKR. According to EurasiaNet, unidentified sources have stated that Arab guerrilla Ibn al-Khattab joined Basayev in Azerbaijan between 1992-1993, although this is dismissed by the Azerbaijani Ministry of Defense ^[18]. In addition officers from the Russian 4th Army participated on combat missions for Azerbaijan on a mercenary basis ^[19].

By the end of 1993, the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh had caused thousands of casualties and created hundreds of thousands of refugees on both sides. In a national address in November 1993, Aliyev stated that 16,000 Azerbaijani troops had died and 22,000 had been injured in nearly six years of fighting. The UN estimated that just under 1 million Azerbaijani ^[20] refugees and displaced persons were in Azerbaijan at the end of 1993. Mediation was attempted by officials from Russia, Kazakhstan, and Iran, among other countries, as well as by organizations including the UN and the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, which began sponsoring peace talks in mid-1992. All negotiations met with little success, and several cease-fires broke down. In mid-1993 Aliyev launched efforts to negotiate a solution directly with the Karabakh Armenians, a step Elchibey had refused to take. Aliyev's efforts achieved several relatively long cease-fires within Nagorno-Karabakh, but outside the region Armenians occupied large sections of southwestern Azerbaijan near the Iranian border during offensives in August and October 1993. Iran and Turkey warned the Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians to cease the offensive operations that threatened to spill over into foreign territory. The Armenians responded by claiming that they were driving back Azerbaijani forces to protect Nagorno-Karabakh from shelling. In 1993 the UN Security Council called for Armenian forces to cease their attacks on and occupation of a number of Azerbaijani regions. In September 1993, Turkey strengthened its forces along its border with Armenia and issued a warning to Armenia to withdraw its troops from Azerbaijan immediately and unconditionally. At the same time, Iran was conducting military maneuvers near the Nakhichevan Autonomous Republic in a move widely regarded as a warning to Armenia ^[21]. Iran proposed creation of a twenty-kilometer security zone along the Iranian-Azerbaijani border, where Azerbaijanis would be protected by Iranian firepower. Iran also contributed to the upkeep of camps in southwestern Azerbaijan to house and feed up to 200,000 Azerbaijanis fleeing the fighting.

Fighting continued into early 1994, with Azerbaijani forces reportedly winning some engagements and regaining some territory lost in previous months. In January 1994, Aliyev pledged that in the coming year occupied territory would be liberated and Azerbaijani refugees would return to their homes. At that point, Armenian forces held an estimated 20 percent of Azerbaijan outside Nagorno-Karabakh, including 160 kilometers along the Iranian border.

As a result of the war against Nagorno-Karabakh independence, Azerbaijanis were driven out of Nagorno-Karabakh, as well as territories adjacent to Nagorno-Karabakh; and these are still under control of the Nagorno-Karabakh Armenian military. With the alleged support of Soviet/Russian military forces, Azerbaijanis forced out tens of thousand Armenians from Shahumyan region (a region adjacent to Soviet-era Nagorno-Karabakh, that joined the self-proclaimed Nagorno Karabakh Republic in 1991) ^{[citation needed]}. An unofficial cease-fire was reached on May 12 1994 through Russian negotiation, and continues today. Armenians remain in control of the Soviet-era autonomous region, and a strip of land called the Lachin corridor linking it with the Republic of Armenia; as well as the so-called 'security zone' — strips of territory along the region's borders that had been used by Azerbaijani artillery during the war. The Shahumyan region remains under the control of Azerbaijan.

Today, Nagorno-Karabakh is a de facto independent state, calling itself the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic ^[22]. It is closely tied to the Republic of Armenia and uses its currency, the dram. 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. The politics of Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh 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).

File:Gukasyan.jpg

President of the NKR, Arkady Ghoukasyan, 1997-present

At present, the mediation process is stalled, as both sides are equally intransigent ^{[citation needed]}. Azerbaijan insists 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 Key West, Florida in the Spring of 2001 ^[23]. The details of the talks have remained largely secret, but the parties are reported to have discussed non-hierarchical relationships between the central Azerbaijani government and the Karabakh Armenian authorities. Despite rumours that the parties were again close to a solution, the Azerbaijani authorities -- both during Heydar Aliyev's period of office, and after the accession of his son Ilham Aliyev in the October 2003 elections -- have firmly denied that any agreement was reached in Paris or Key West. Further talks between the Azerbaijani and Armenian presidents, Ilham Aliyev and Robert Kocharyan, were held in September 2004 in Astana, Kazakhstan, on the sidelines of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) summit. 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.

Human rights

Displaced people

The military campaign of Armenians for unification with Armenia and /or independence has led to the displacement of 568,000 Azerbaijanis from Armenian controlled territories including Nagorno Karabakh. Estimates made in 2000 by the US Committee for Refugees puts the total number of Azerbaijanis displaced from Nagorno-Karabakh at 42,072 (Azerbaijan Country Report). This figure excludes the Azerbaijani displaced population from other 8 non-disputed Azerbaijani rayons outside of Nagorno-Karabakh that includes Fizuli (133,725 persons), Agdam (128,584 persons), Lachin (63,007 persons), Kelbadjar (59,274), Jabrayil (58,834 persons), Gubadli (31, 276 persons), Zangilan (34,797 persons), Terter (5,171 persons) and Agjabedi (3,358 persons), which are under the Armenian military control since the 1990s.

Ethnic Azerbaijanis constitute the majority of the displaced population. The rest of the displaced population include some 4,000 Kurds from and several hundred persons of various other ethnic groups, mostly Russian. In 2000, 135,000 of Azerbaijani internally displaced still lived in tented camps, uncompleted buildings and railway wagons. Women and children constitute over 70 percent of the displaced population ^[24]. The infant mortality among displaced children is 3-4 times higher than that in the rest of the population. The rate of stillbirths was 88.2 per 1,000 live born babies among the internally displaced people. The majority of the displaced continue to live in difficult conditions after more than 11 years. ^[25].

250,000 Azerbaijanis who fled Armenia to escape persecution during the conflict equates the number of refugee and displaced Azerbaijanis to approximately 800,000 people. This is the largest refugee and displaced population in the entire Europe^[26].

As a result of the conflict 280,000 Armenians fled Azerbaijan during the 1988-1993 war over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh—were living in refugee-like circumstances in Armenia. Some left the country, principally to Russia. Their numbers are thus subject to constant decline due to death, departure, and de-registration required for naturalization. All were registered with the government as refugees at year’s end^[27].