Nagorno-Karabakh

An enclave by design

Nagorno-Karabakh lies on the northeastern slopes of the Karabakh Range of the Lesser Caucasus. Russia acquired it in 1813. In 1923 the Soviet government made it an autonomous oblast of about 4,400 km² inside the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic, with an Armenian majority. The Karabakh Range cut it off from Soviet Armenia to the west, so it became a minority enclave within Azerbaijan.^[1]

In 1988 its Armenians began campaigning for the oblast to be moved to Armenian jurisdiction. Both Soviet Azerbaijan and the Soviet government strongly opposed it, and relations between Armenians and Azerbaijanis turned violent. When Armenia and Azerbaijan became independent from the Soviet Union in 1991, the two communities in the enclave went to war.^[1]

Thirty years of a republic nobody recognised

Karabakh Armenian forces, backed by Armenia, took Nagorno-Karabakh and much of southwestern Azerbaijan around it, including the land connecting it to Armenia: some 7,000 km² in all. A ceasefire in 1994 ended the fighting. Talks guided by Russia and the “Minsk Group” never produced a settlement.^[1]

The Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh declared independence in early 1992 and held its own elections and, in 2006, a referendum on a constitution. Azerbaijan called these illegal, and no country recognised the republic.^[1]

2020 and 2023

Fighting broke out again on 27 September 2020 and became the worst since the early 1990s, with drones, ballistic missiles and cluster munitions.^[1] A ceasefire brokered by Russia took effect on 10 November. Armenia had to hand back the Agdam, Kalbajar and Lachin districts, and 1,960 Russian peacekeepers deployed along the front and the 5 km-wide Lachin Corridor, the road linking the region to Armenia.^[4]

The Lachin Corridor was blockaded from December 2022.^[1] On 19 September 2023 Azerbaijan launched an offensive, firing missiles and drones at Stepanakert.^[3] Rights groups say the siege used food as a weapon of war and ended in the forcible expulsion of the Armenian population; Azerbaijan says it restored order on its own territory and that Armenians could have stayed.^[5] By October more than 100,000 of the region’s roughly 120,000 Armenians had fled.^[1]

On 28 September the region’s president, Samvel Shahramanyan, signed a decree that all its institutions would dissolve by 1 January 2024: “The Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) ceases its existence.”^[3] Its leaders later retracted the decree in exile.^[1] The last Russian peacekeepers left on 12 June 2024.^[2]

Towards a treaty

Armenia and Azerbaijan began negotiating in 2024, and a peace text was agreed in March 2025. Azerbaijan would not sign it until Armenia removed from its constitution what Azerbaijan sees as a claim to Karabakh.^[1] On 8 August 2025 Ilham Aliyev and Nikol Pashinyan met Donald Trump at the White House and committed to respect each other’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.^[5]