Photo by www.xocali.net

• All the information included to the presentation are based on the facts and research results of third parties

• Relevant references could be found at the end of each page.

By Elchin Ibrahimov

http://theyounggeorgians.wordpress.com/about/

http://mfa.gov.az/

Armenia

Capital: Yerevan

Independence from the Soviet Union Declared: 23 August 1990

Total area: 29,743 km2

Population: 3,262,000

Azerbaijan

Capital: Baku

Independence from the Soviet Union Declared: 30 August 1991

Total area: 86,600 km2

Population: 9,000,000

Nagorno-Karabakh

Nagorno-Karabakh

The word Nagorno is derived from the Russian adjective nagorny (нагорный), which means "highland".

The word Karabakh is generally held to originate from Turkic and Persian, and literally means "black garden“.

Total area : 4,400 km2

Population (1989): 190.000

Armenians: 77 % Azerbaijani: 21.5%Russian: 1 %Other nationalities: 0.5%

Nagorno-Karabakh Republic governs the region, an unrecognized, de facto independent state established on the basis of the Azerbaijan territory.

The territory is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, although it has not exercised power over most of the region since 1991.

Since the end of the Nagorno-Karabakh War in 1994, representatives of the governments of Armenia and Azerbaijan have been holding peace talks mediated by the OSCE Minsk Group on the region's status.

Currently…..

Let’s go back to the history of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Of course both sides claim that historically NK was part of their country:

• Armenian orientated sources assume that Nagorno-Karabakh was part of the early Armenia as the province of Arzakh.

• In contrast, Azerbaijani sources place the province of Arzakh within the former Caucasian Albania.

The Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict: A Legal Analysis By Heiko Krüger

• “Right up until the late Middle Ages Karabakh is said to have been home to the Caucasian Albanians.”

• “Until this time the territory could not be clearly classified ethnically as belonging to either the Armenian or the Azerbaijani cultural area.”

The Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict: A Legal Analysis By Heiko Krüger

• “Karabakh, like Erivan, was considered to be a territory dominated by the Azerbaijanis from the 16th to the 19th centuries”

• “Not even the territory of modern Armenia could be regarded as being under Armenian rule at that time.”

• “In the middle of the 18th century the Karabakh khanate was established under the Azerbaijani Panah-Ali khan Javanshir.”

The Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict: A Legal Analysis By Heiko Krüger

• “Most of the region could meanwhile be regarded as being settled by Azerbaijani tribes, such as the Otuziki, Javanshir and Kebirli.

• Although a proportion of Karabakh’s population was Christian-Albanian and Armenian, most of its population at this time was Muslim.

• Research in recent decades has shown that 80% of the population in the southern Caucasus region was Muslim and 20% Armenian. The Armenian population in Karabakh was still only 8.4% of the total in 1823.”

The Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict: A Legal Analysis By Heiko Krüger

Then how it comes that the population of Nagorno-Karabakh

in 1989 was mostly 77% Armenians??....

1850s

Russia

Iran

Ott

oman

After Turkmanchay Treaty 1828

• 560,000 Armenians were settled in Azerbaijan between 1828 and 1920 by Russian Empire from Ottoman Empire (Turkey) and Persian Impire (Iran)

“The Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict” by Jacob Dougherty, University of Wisconsin

Russia

1850s

Iran

Ott

oman

1917- Russian revolution

Transcaucasia

Soviet union

• …..it was ultimately decided that Nagorno-Karabakh should remain in the Azerbaijan Soviet Republic and be granted autonomous status (1923).

• This was the final and binding ruling which was repeatedly affirmed by the Soviet leadership over the following years.

• Until 1991 Soviet Union collapsed it was relatively peacefully, except in 1960s when the workers and peasants of Nagorno-Karabakh and the Armenian SSR presented various petitions to change the territorial affiliation of Karabakh, but this was rejected by official Moscow.

1988

1948

400.000 Azerbaijani were forced out from Armenia

Russia

Iran

Tur

key

Geo

rgia

100.000 Armenians left Baku and other cities in 1988

• 1988 beginning – tensions and nationalistic anti-Azerbaijani mood increased in Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh.

• 24 Febrauary, 1988 - Then two young Azerbaijanis had been killed in an administrative district bordering Nagorno-Karabakh (Asgaran during demostration against the annexation of Nagorno-Karabakh Oblast into Armenia SSR).

27 February, 1988 -This led to violent attacks by Azerbaijanis on Armenians in Sumgait in front of police and Soviet troops where 26 Armenians and 6 Azerbaijani were killed.

• Sumgait and Baku events were actually planned by Russian Intelligent agencies as later USSR KGB Chairman Vladimir Kryuchkov admitted.

• The KGB obviously organised acts of provocation within local conflicts across the Soviet Union to weaken the Gorbachev Administration.

The Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict: A Legal Analysis By Heiko Krüger

• 1988 July 12 - The Session of People's Deputies of the Regional Soviet in NKAR adopted an anti-constitutional decision on separation from the Azerbaijani SSR.

• Under Article 78 of the USSR Constitution, the territory of a Union republic could not be altered without its consent. The borders between Union republics could be altered by mutual agreement of the republics concerned, subject to approval by the USSR.

Anti-constitutional decision

As a result of military aggression of Armenian armed forces, 20% of Azerbaijani lands, that is in 1988-1992, 4400 sq km territory of Nagorno-Karabakh (Shusha, Khankandi, Khojali, Asgaran, Khojavand, Agdara, Hadrut) and 7 adjacent regions

Region occupation date TerritoryLachin region: May 18, 1992, 1875 sq km.,Kelbajar region: April 2, 1993, 1936 sq km.,Agdam region: July 23, 1993, 1154 sq km.,Jabrail region: August 23, 1993, 1050 sq km.,Fizuli region: August 23, 1993, 1112 sq km.,Gubadli region: August 31, 1993, 826 sq km.,Zangilan region: October 30, 1993, 707 sq km.,

1 million Azerbaijanis became refugees and internally displaced persons.

Overall damage to Azerbaijan side was 6 bln US dollars.

30.000 were killed, 5.000 Armenian and 25.000 Azerbaijani……

In this period the most tragical event of XX century happened.

Khojaly Massacre

• Khojaly was Azerbaijan settlement situated in Nagorno Karabakh region

• Population 7.000 people

Khojaly

• The Armenian armed forces supported by the ex-Soviet 366th regiment attacked the city.

• After all 150 people defending the town were killed

• the remaining handful of the town’s defendants provided a humanitarian corridor for several hundreds of the town’s residents to escape their homes.

• Several thousands of fleeing civilians were ambushed at several points and being shelled by bullet rain. However advances punitive teams of so called NK defense army after eliminating handful of policemen accompanying the refugees column reached out unprotected civilians to slaughter some, finish off others, having some bodies mutilated and scalped as the notorious karabakh war trophies.

At night from 25 to 26 February 1992

In a few hours of night

613 civilians were killed including

106 women,

83 children.

56 people were killed with outrageous brutality,

8 families were totally exterminated,

25 children lost both parents while

30 children lost at least one parent

Massacre which has become the most brutal punishment of civilians during the whole 3 years of the conflict’s military phase.

http://justiceforkhojaly.org/

• Khojali was the bloodiest massacre in the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over Nagorny Karabakh. Thomas De Waal

• “The mass killing of civilians in the ‘free corridor’ zone and adjacent territory cannot be justified by any circumstances.”

• BBC reporter said he, cameraman and western journalists have seen more than 100 corpses, who are men, women, children massacred by Armenians…..

Memorial Human rights Society

Morning News at 08:12, Tuesday, 3 March 1992

• “…….And Serzh Sarkisian, now president of Armenia, confirmed to me in an interview in December 2000 that Armenian armed men had indeed killed Azerbaijani civilians. ”

http://www.exportlawblog.com/archives/2609Thomas De Waal

Cease-Fire, 1994

• Russia brokered a cease-fire between Armenia and Azerbaijan in 1994

• The cease-fire has not been successful, as the goals of both sides have not been met– Armenia occupies 20% of Azeri

territory, including territory outside of Karabakh; still demands independence for Karabakh

– Azerbaijan demands its right to self-determination, the end of the occupation and the return of Karabakh to Azerbaijan

“The Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict” by Jacob Dougherty, University of Wisconsin

www.azer.com

Impact of the Conflict• Over 400 people have died each year since the cease-

fire in Nagorno-Karabakh due to the continued conflict.

• No end of conflict achieved yet.• The plight of refugees:

• Over 1 million displaced Azeris in Azerbaijan

• Refugee camps unable to supply refugees with clean water, food

Results of the WAR (1988-1994)

• 30 000 killed from both sides

• Azerbaijan possess 800 000 IDPs/refugees expelled from Nagorno Karabakh, Armenia and 7 occupied regions beyond NK

• Armenia possess 300 000 refugees from Azerbaijan

• UN Security Council passed 4 resolutions:

- recognizes the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan - demanded the immediate cessation of military

- immediate, full and unconditional withdrawal of

• The Republic of Armenia refused to comply with these demands

occupation forces from all the occupied regions of the Azerbaijan Republic.

activities

’Power mediation’’ and ‘’track sharing’’ approaches 1996

December 2-3 - OSCE Lisbon Summit. The OSCE statement supported by all (53) OSCE member states except Armenia, on three principles for the settlement of the conflict:

1) territorial integrity of the Republic of Armenia and the Azerbaijan Republic;

2) legal status of Nagorno-Karabakh defined in an agreement based on self-determination which confers on Nagorno-Karabakh the highest degree of self-rule within Azerbaijan;

3) guaranteed security for Nagorno-Karabakh and its whole population, including mutual obligations to ensure compliance by all the parties with the provisions of the settlement;