Azerbaijan–Georgia border

A vague Soviet line

In the Soviet era the boundary between the Georgian and Azerbaijani republics was redrawn repeatedly and imprecisely, leaving only a vague international border at independence in 1991. The one map both republics’ leaders had agreed to, drawn in 1938, became the basis for negotiations, but its large scale left room for interpretation.^[2]

Each country had bigger territorial problems elsewhere, and the two built a close economic and strategic partnership rather than a precise border. After three decades of talks, about 35 percent of the line was still undelimited in 2021.^[1][2]

Davit Gareja

The most sensitive stretch runs past Davit Gareja, a network of rock-cut monasteries and churches on Mount Gareja founded in the 6th century. It is a major holy and historic site for Georgia and a strategic height for Azerbaijan; the Soviet division left part of it on each side, and the 1938 map placed a small section in Azerbaijan. Georgia offered land elsewhere in exchange for the whole complex, without success, and an informal arrangement lets visitors from Georgia reach the main sites.^[1][2]

In April 2019, after Georgia’s president Salome Zourabichvili visited the site and called for the border to be settled, Azerbaijani border guards blocked access to the Udabno monastery, which Azerbaijan considers its territory and many Georgians dispute. The foreign ministries talked and the site reopened; Baku said it was ready to finish delimiting the border.^[1]

“That all of Davit Gareja is Georgian is an emotional and cultural truth. But the key is to make it a cartographic reality, accepted by international law.”^[2]

The cartographers’ case

In October 2020, weeks before parliamentary elections, Georgian prosecutors arrested two cartographers who had advised the delimitation commission, accusing them of hiding 1930s maps that favoured Georgia. The charges concerned sections agreed with Azerbaijan in 2004–07, which the government said it would try to reverse. The cartographers said the maps had been reviewed and rejected as inaccurate, and critics called the case politically motivated.^[2]