Category: CSS Compulsory Subjects

Observers have warned that the ongoing violence is the worst since the end of the war in 1994

By: Andrew Korybko

The intense clashes in the South Caucasus between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh threaten to provoke the next global crisis. The contested region is internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan but is populated mostly by Armenian separatists whose titular country fought a bitter war with its neighbour over this territory from 1988-1994. No peace deal was ever agreed to and four UNSC Resolutions have called on Armenia to withdraw its military forces from this Azerbaijani land, which it has failed to do to this day.

Both sides blame one another for this latest round of unrest which has spread all along the Line of Contact (LOC) between their military forces. Armenia says that Azerbaijan launched an unprovoked attack whereas Azerbaijan accuses Armenia of doing exactly just that and therefore describes its own actions as a counteroffensive. Whatever the truth may be, Azerbaijan indisputably has the UN-enshrined right to regain control of its internationally recognised territory, though ideally through peaceful means than forceful ones.