Summary of Nagorno-Karabagh Significant Events (1920s-2023)

Keghart.org, 30 December 2023

Following the Bolshevik revolution, the Caucasian countries fell under Soviet rule, and the Soviet republics of Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia were formed. Nagorno-Karabagh — a region predominantly inhabited by Armenians — was a semi-autonomous entity, disputed between Armenia and Azerbaijan. It was temporarily governed  by the Armenian National Council of the region. In the 1920s, Stalin, to appease Turkic and Muslim people, transferred the jurisdiction of it to Azerbaijan.

In late 1980s during Gorbachev’s rule and the enunciation of the policies of perestroika and glasnost, and the start of the dissolution of the USSR, the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabagh resorted to legal methods to attain independence. They conducted a plebiscite based on the internationally accepted norms of self-determination, followed the postulates of the Constitutions of the Soviet Union and Soviet Azerbaijan, and declared themselves independent. They established the institutions required to run the state which was named the Republic of Artsakh.

This action precipitated war in 1994 between the Armenians and Azerbaijan. Armenians were victorious. They liberated the area and took control of additional seven regions of Azerbaijan. The Council of Security and Cooperation of Europe intervened and later established the Minsk group (Co-chaired by Russia, France, and the USA) to resolve the conflict peacefully. Unfortunately no resolution was achieved, and the situation transpired into a frozen conflict for the next 26 years.

In 2020 Azerbaijan with the help of Turkey, Israel, Pakistan, and Jihadists from various countries, regained control of the non-Armenian regions and part of the area inhabited by Armenians. A cease-fire was concluded in November 2020 through Russia’s mediation. For nearly ten months, starting on 12 December 2022, the Nagorno-Karabagh region was blockaded by Azerbaijan.

“The blockade led to a humanitarian crisis for the population in Artsakh; imports of essential goods [were] blocked, as well as humanitarian convoys of the Red Cross […] trapping the 120,000 residents of the region. Shortages of essential goods – including electricity, fuel, and water reserves – were widespread and emergency reserves were rationed, along with mass unemployment, and closures of schools and public transportation.” Wikipedia

Azerbaijan re-launched a large-scale military offensive against the citizens of Nagorno-Karabagh between 19 and 20 September 2023, “a move seen as a violation of the ceasefire agreement signed in November 2023”.

Armenians of Karabagh were forced to leave their millennia-old homeland for the Republic of Armenia, fearing persecution and outright slaughter that they had witnessed in prior years (Pogroms of Sumgait, Kirovabad and Baku). During the exodus, the Azerbaijani army arrested high-ranking past and current functionaries of the Nagorno-Karabagh (Artsakh) government, they were taken to Baku and imprisoned. Prominent international organizations and jurists have characterized these acts of Azerbaijan as ethnic-cleansing/genocide.