Nagorno-Karabakh Dispute

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev have announced that their respective countries would be setting up border security and delimitation commissions, signalling a step towards resolution of a decades-long conflict over the Nagorno-Karabakh Enclave.

Modern-day Armenia and Azerbaijan became part of the Soviet Union when it formed in the 1920s.
As the Soviet Union saw increasing tensions in its constituent republics in the 1980s, Nagorno-Karabakh voted to become part of Armenia, but the Soviets gave control over the area to Azerbaijani authorities. It sparked ethnic clashes that stopped with a ceasefire in 1994.
Since then, Nagorno-Karabakh has remained part of Muslim-majority Azerbaijan but is controlled by separatist ethnic Armenians backed by the Christian Armenian government.
The ceasefire also established the Nagorno-Karabakh Line of Contact, separating Armenian and Azerbaijan forces.

Peace talks have taken place since then, mediated by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Minsk Group – a body set up in 1992 and co-chaired by France, Russia and the United States.
However, negotiations have so far failed to produce a permanent peace agreement, and the dispute remains one of post-Soviet Europe’s “frozen conflicts.”
While both countries have now agreed to formulate border security and delimitation commissions and start talks for a peace deal, a permanent solution for the Karabakh issue remains out of sight.

Reference

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