Why is Pakistan the only country that does not recognise Armenia?
WRITTEN BY: Andrew Korybko
The frozen Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is one of Eurasia’s geopolitical time bombs just like Kashmir.
Pakistan is the only country in the world that doesn’t recognise the independence of Armenia. The South Caucasus country objectively exists and is a member of the UN, but Islamabad’s stance is a principled one practiced as a form of protest in response to Yerevan’s egregious human rights violations against the Azeris of Azerbaijan’s Nagorno-Karabakh region. There are some very good reasons why Pakistan doesn’t recognise Armenia, and they’ll be touched upon briefly in this piece.
The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is at the core of Pakistan’s decision. This war lasted from 1988-1994 and remains frozen to this day. The Armenians of Azerbaijan’s then-Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (region) wanted to unite with their ethnic brethren in nearby Armenia in the twilight days of the USSR. This was a direct consequence of the widespread explosion of pent-up nationalist sentiment in the Soviet Union triggered by Gorbachev’s failed experiment with glasnost (“openness”).