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Armenia-Azerbaijan Conflict: Why Armenia Needs To Pull-Out From Occupied-Regions Of Azerbaijan: OPED

The intensification of conflict and violent clashes along the Armenia-Azerbaijan border is the latest rekindling of a historical conflict between the two former Soviet states.

Some 20% of Azerbaijan’s territory, including the Upper Karabakh, or Nagorno-Karabakh region, has remained under occupation by Armenia for roughly three decades.

Four UN Security Council and two UN General Assembly resolutions as well as decisions by many international organizations refer to this fact and demand the withdrawal of Armenia’s forces from Upper Karabakh and seven adjacent regions of Azerbaijan.

The Upper Karabakh region includes the towns of Shusha, Khankendi, Khojaly, Asgaran, Khojavand, Aghdara and Hadrut.

The seven other occupied regions of Azerbaijan are the districts surrounding the Upper Karabakh area, including Lachin, Kalbajar, Aghdam, Fuzuli, Jabrayil, Qubadli and Zangilan.

During the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, over one million Azerbaijanis became internally displaced persons (IDPs), while 20,000 were martyred in military operations and 50,000 were wounded and became disabled, according to Azerbaijan’s official figures.

At least 4,000 Azerbaijanis went missing during the conflict and their fate remains unknown. More than 2,000 Azerbaijanis were captured and taken hostage by Armenian forces.

In 1923, the Soviet government established the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO), with a total area of 4,400 square kilometers (around 1,700 square miles) in the mountainous part of Karabakh, laying the foundation of separatist trends in that region.

In the early 1980s, Armenians in the Soviet Union’s leadership along with the leaders of Soviet Armenia and its diaspora abroad exploited the weakening of the central government of the USSR to embark on a campaign to annex the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast to Armenia.

The Armenia-Azerbaijan Upper-Karabakh conflict was sparked with the open territorial claims of Armenians to Azerbaijan’s historical lands, as well as ethnic provocations in 1988.

From 1987 to 1989, over 250,000 Azerbaijanis were expelled from their historical lands in Armenia, while 216 of them were brutally murdered and another 1,154 wounded.

At the Feb. 20, 1988 session of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast Soviet of People’s Deputies, members of the region’s Armenian community adopted a resolution to appeal to the legislative body the Supreme Soviet of Azerbaijan SSR and the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic (Armenian SSR, or Soviet Armenia) to annex NKAO to the Armenian SSR.

On Feb. 22, 1988, the Armenians opened fire on a peaceful demonstration staged by Azerbaijanis near the town of Asgaran to protest against this resolution, which left two Azerbaijanis dead.

On Dec. 1, 1989, the Supreme Soviet of Armenian SSR adopted the unprecedented resolution: “On the unification of Armenian SSR and Nagorno-Karabakh.”

On Jan. 10, 1990, the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet adopted the resolution: “On the nonconformity with the USSR Constitution of the acts on Nagorno-Karabakh adopted by Armenian SSR Supreme Soviet on December 1, 1989 and January 9, 1990.” The resolution described as illegal the Armenian SSR’s demand on the unification of the Armenian SSR and Nagorno-Karabakh, noting that such an act could only come about with the Azerbaijan SSR’s consent.

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