Nagorno-karabakh problem: claims, counterclaims and impasse

Nagorno-Karabakh (NK) problem, inherited from the Soviet Union, has caused huge po-litical, economic and social devastations to both independent Azerbaijan and Armenia since 1991. Though the dispute over the ownership of the NK region became known with a long bloody war between Azerbaijan and Armenia at the end of the 1980s, the problem itself goes as far back as in the 19th century and closely linked to many other territorial issues in the Caucasus region. One of the purposes of the Soviet Nationalities policies, alongside creating a homogenous Soviet socialist society, was to end nationalistic anta-gonisms and border disputes among the nationals of the USSR. Let alone eradicating those ethnic lines, Soviet System with its nationalities and modernization policies became main sources of conflicts in the Union in the long term. The NK issue represented one of the stark examples of it. As one would expect, when Gorbachev initiated glasnost and pe-restroika policies to save the crumbling Soviet state, they became main catalysts to re-kindle the NK issue. Finally, because of Gorbachev's and overall Soviet systems' inability and unwillingness to apply the Constitution, the NK region was separated from Azerbai-jan and de facto joined to Armenia by force. The reason for inception of the war between Azerbaijan and Armenia at the end of the 1980s was the Armenian claims that Azer-baijan had for decades left the Armenians in Azerbaijan including within the NK region deliberately underdeveloped in their economic, social and cultural progressions. This would then have caused, from the Armenian point of view, the disappearance of Armenian people from their own lands. However, these Armenian views on the NK region show a number of discrepancies when real reasons and scales of territorial, economic and demog-raphic changes in the region are considered.

Nagorno-Karabakh ,

Azerbaijan ,

Armenia ,

Caucasus ,

Soviet Union ,

Mikhail Gorbachev ,