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The current conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan began in 1988, when the ethnic Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh unilaterally declared their independence from Azerbaijan, with the intent of uniting with the Republic of Armenia. At that time, ethnic Armenians comprised about 65 percent of Nagorno-Karabakh. This push by the ethnic Karabakh Armenians to secede from Azerbaijan was instigated by Armenia, which has had territorial claims against Azerbaijan as part of its desire to create a Greater Armenia by expanding its territory. Armenian soldiers and arms are being used to carry out this policy.

The conflict was escalated by Russia's political and military support of Armenia. Russia is using the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict as part of its long-time policy of "divide and conquer." Since 1993, Armenia has received $1 billion in arms shipments from Russia. These arms, including the most modern Russian tanks, armored personnel carriers, SCUD missiles and tons of ammunition, were shipped through Armenia to the site of the conflict inside Azerbaijan.

A series of Armenian offensives, beginning in 1992 and backed by Russian arms, resulted in the Armenian occupation of almost 20 percent of Azerbaijan territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven other districts. As a result, Azerbaijan is left with approximately 1 million refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) who were forced to flee for their lives.

A cease-fire was negotiated in May 1994, but all attempts to negotiate a settlement have failed. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) began its mediation efforts in 1992, and in 1995 at a summit meeting in Lisbon, 53 out of 54 member states of the OSCE endorsed a statement of three principles upon which the conflict should be settled. Armenia was the only country that refused to support the statement because it supported the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan and Armenia .

In 1996, the OSCE appointed three co-chairs to its Minsk Conference-the United States, Russia and France. The Minsk Conference is charged with the responsibility of negotiating peace in this region. These co-chairs then developed a two-staged peace proposal: (1) withdrawal of Armenian forces from all regions of Azerbaijan except Nagorno-Karabakh; and (2) negotiations on the final status of Nagorno-Karabakh within Azerbaijan. This proposal was accepted by Azerbaijan and by Armenian President Levon Ter-Petrossian. However, it was opposed by hard-line elements within Armenia and ethnic Armenians within Nagorno-Karabakh. As a result, President Ter-Petrossian was forced from office, replaced by hard-line elements.

Now the peace process is up in the air again. Azerbaijan remains committed to a peaceful solution based on the following Lisbon principles: (1) recognition of territorial integrity of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Republic of Armenia; (2) Azerbaijan will grant the highest level of self-rule to Nagorno-Karabakh; and (3) security guarantees will be provided to the entire population of Nagorno-Karabakh .

Nagorno-Karabakh is an enclave inside Azerbaijan, and has no border with Armenia. Before the conflict started, Armenia deported some 200,000 Azerbaijanis from Armenia. Then it occupied the whole territory of Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding seven regions and, in effect, has annexed Nagorno-Karabakh and this territory to Armenia. In the process all Azerbaijanis previously living in these regions which belong to Azerbaijan were forced to flee for their lives.

It might be noted that even the Nazis allowed inhabitants of their occupied territories to stay and live there. But Armenians have rid Azerbaijanis from the entire occupied territories. Khojaly, a small Azerbaijani town in Nagorno-Karabakh, is a sad example of genocide, when overnight the whole town was destroyed, more than 700 innocent civilians, including many women and children, were murdered and others were forcefully deported. The President of Azerbaijan has subsequently declared March 31 as the Day of Genocide of Azerbaijanis in commemoration of that occasion and other earlier tragic massacres.

Azerbaijan has accepted and supported all peace initiatives of the OSCE. Now, Armenia must decide whether it wishes to further isolate itself from the rest of the world community or join in seeking a just and honorable compromise to this 10-year old conflict.conflict to return to their homes safely and with dignity."

Recalling the Resolutions 822, 853, 874, and 884 (all 1993) of the UN Security Council, PACE urged "the parties concerned to comply with them, in particular by refraining from any armed hostilities and by withdrawing military forces from any occupied territories."

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. "These so-called 'elections' cannot be legitimate," stressed Council of Europe Committee of Ministers' Chairman and Liechtenstein Foreign Minister Ernst Walch, Parliamentary Assembly President Lord Russell-Johnston and Secretary General Walter Schwimmer. 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. This position was reiterated by Walter Schwimmer, Secretary General of the Council of Europe on 4 August 2004 with regard to the next elections, staged in the province.

The European Union declared that "The European Union confirms its support for the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, and recalls that it does not recognise the independence of Nagorno Karabakh. The European Union cannot consider legitimate the 'presidential elections' that were scheduled to take place on 11 August 2002 in Nagorno Karabakh".

The declaration of establishment NKR's states that "The Nagorno Karabakh Republic enjoys the authorities given to Republics by the USSR Constitution and legislation and reserves the right to decide independently the issue of its state-legal status based on political consultations and negotiations with the leadership of Union and Republics."

According to an analysis by New England School of Law's Center for International Law & Policy, as well as Public International Law and Policy Group, "Nagorno Karabagh has a right of self-determination, including the attendant right to independence, according to the criteria recognized under international law ... The principle of self-determination is included in the United Nations Charter, was further codified in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights ... The right to self-determination has also been repeatedly recognized in a series of resolutions adopted by the U.N. General Assembly." The analysis further notes that, as NKR's "independence was declared not from the Soviet Union but from Azerbaijan," and as Nagorno Karabakh "at that time was part of a still existent and internationally recognized Soviet Union," NKR's declaration of independence "fully complied with existing law." In particular, "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." Furthermore, "the USSR Constitutional Oversight Committee did not annul the declaration to establishment the Nagorno Karabagh Republic, since that declaration was deemed in compliance with the then existing law."

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. Article 3 of this law provided autonomous regions within the Soviet republics with the right to determine independently, by referendum, whether they wished to remain within the USSR or join the republic seceding from the USSR. It would however seem that according to this law N-K would have the choice of two options – to remain within the USSR or to join independent Azerbaijan; N-K independence does not seem possible."

The OSCE Minsk Group has allowed the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (referring to it as 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". The Chairman of the CSCE Minsk Conference mentioned that "the terms 'party to the conflict' and 'leadership of Nagorny Karabakh' do not imply recognition of any diplomatic or political status under domestic or international law". The Azerbaijani community is led by Nizami Bakhmanov, the head of the executive power of Shusha region.

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 estimated that 63 percent of internally displaced persons (IDPs) lived below the poverty line as compared to 49% of the total population. About 154,000 lived in the capital, Baku. According to the International Organization for Migration, 40,000 IDPs lived in camps, 60,000 in underground dugout shelters, and 20,000 in railway cars. Forty-thousand IDPs lived in EU-funded settlements and UNHCR provided housing for another 40,000. Another 5,000 IDPs lived in abandoned or rapidly deteriorating schools. Others lived in trains, on roadsides in half-constructed buildings, or in public buildings such as tourist and health facilities. Tens of thousands lived in seven tent camps where poor water supply and sanitation caused gastro-intestinal infections, tuberculosis, and malaria.

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. The government required IDPs to register their place of residence in an attempt to better target the limited and largely inadeguate national and international assistance due to the Armenian advocated and US imposed restrictions on humanitarian aid to Azerbaijan. Many IDPs were from rural areas and found it difficult to integrate into the urban labor market. Many international humanitarian agencies reduced or ceased assistance for IDPs citing increasing oil revenues of the country forgetting to condemn the Armenian imposed suffering. The infant mortality among displaced Azerbaijani children is 3-4 times higher than in the rest of the population. The rate of stillbirth was 88.2 per 1,000 births among the internally displaced people. The majority of the displaced have lived in difficult conditions for more than 13 years.

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. Some left the country, principally to Russia. Their children born in Armenia acquire citizenship automatically. Their numbers are thus subject to constant decline due to departure, and de-registration required for naturalization. Of these, about 250,000 fled Azerbaijan-proper (areas outside Nagorno-Karabakh); approximately 30,000 came from Nagorno-Karabakh, which is in Azerbaijan but controlled by Armenians. All were registered with the government as refugees at year’s end.

Constitutional referendum

On November 3, 2006 Arkady Gukasyan signed a decree to carry out a referendum on draft on Nagorno-Karabakh constitution, which was held on December 10 of the same year. According to official preliminary results from December 10, as many as 98.6 percent of voters approved the constitution. The 142nd article of the document describes the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic as "a sovereign, democratic legal and social state"; however, the European Union, OSCE and GUAM rejected the referendum. The EU announced it was "aware that a 'constitutional referendum' has taken place," but reiterated that only a negotiated settlement between Azerbaijan and ethnic Armenians can bring a lasting solution. In a statement, the OSCE chairman in office Karel De Gucht called the vote potentially harmful to the ongoing conflict settlement process, which, he said, has shown "visible progress" and is at a "promising juncture". The outcome was also criticised by Turkey.

Photo Gallery

See also

• Artsakh
• Nagorno-Karabakh Defense Army
• Landmine situation in Nagorno Karabakh

References

Footnotes

1. Europa.eu
2. http://www.nkr.am/eng/deklaraciya209.html, Declaration on Proclamation of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic
3. http://www.nesl.edu/center/pubs/nagorno.pdf The Nagorno-Karabagh Crisis: A Blueprint for Resolution, New England Center for International Law & Policy
4. De Waal, Black Garden, p. 285
5. World Refugee Survey: Azerbaijan report 2005
6. Global IDP Project: Proifle of Internal Displacement: Azerbaijan. May 2003 (as a PDF file)
7. US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants. World Refugee Survey; Armenia Country Report. 2001.
8. Regnum.ru
9. ^ RadioFreeEurope
10. ISN.ETHZ.ch
11. International Herald Tribune
12. Kavkaz.memo.ru

General

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   — Azerbaijan

External links

Non partisan sources

• Article on the Dec. 10 Referendum from Russia Profile
• http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/country_profiles/3658938.stm Regions and territories: Nagorno-Karabakh] from the BBC
• Conciliation Resources - Accord issue: The limits of leadership - Elites and societies in the Nagorny Karabakh peace process also key texts & agreements and chronology (in English & Russian)
• COE — "The conflict over the Nagorno-Karabakh region dealt with by the OSCE Minsk Conference" Report by rapporteur David Atkinson presented to Political Affairs Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
• USIP — Sovereignty after Empire Self-Determination Movements in the Former Soviet Union. Case Studies: Nagorno-Karabakh. by Galina Starovoitova, Publication of the United States Institute of Peace (USIP)
• USIP — Nagorno-Karabakh Searching for a Solution: Key points, by Patricia Carley, Publication of the United States Institute of Peace (USIP)
• Interview with Thomas De Waal
• Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty. Nagorno-Karabakh: Timeline Of The Long Road To Peace
• All UN Security Council resolutions on Nagorno-Karabakh, courtesy U.S. State department
• Resolution #1416 from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe

From an Armenian perspective

• Official site of the Nagorno-Karabakh government
• Official site of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic Ministry of Foreign Affairs
• NKR Office in Washington, DC
• "Azat Artsakh" Daily Newspaper in Nagorno-Karabakh

From an Azerbaijani perspective

• Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan republic
• Artsakh.com
• Karabakh.org
• Karabakh.co.uk

Template:Dependent, autonomous, and other territories of Europe

• Nagorno-Karabakh
• Caucasus
• Unrecognized or largely-unrecognized states
• Foreign relations of Armenia
• Subdivisions of Azerbaijan