ABSTRACT
The conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh has been ongoing since 1988, when the ethnic-Armenian-led regional legislature in the Soviet Union’s Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast voted to unify with the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic. In subsequent years, tensions between ethnic Armenians and Azerbaijanis intensified across the two territories amid the Soviet Union’s collapse, leading to the First Nagorno-Karabakh War, which ended in 1994 with ethnic-Armenian forces. In the reporting period, the conflict was marked by clashes along the de jure border between Azerbaijan and Armenia as well as confrontations along the lines of control around the ethnic-Armenian-controlled portion of the Nagorno-Karabakh territory. Armenia’s diplomatic approach has increasingly drifted away from Russia and towards the EU and US, and Yerevan has also sought to improve relations with Turkiye, a key supplier of arms to Azerbaijan.
