Good Example Of The Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict Research Paper

The international situation of the end of XX - the beginning of the XXI century can be characterized, as widely conflicted. Each continent of the world has the territorial conflicts, only Antarctica remains the territory of peace.
Disintegration of the Soviet Union opened the problems, existing behind the "Iron Curtain". The Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict for Nagorno-Karabakh is potentially dangerous to entire Asian region. The solution of this problem stands still as the parties lay down to each other very high conditions. Baku and Yerevan consider the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh as their historical territory. Actually this territory till the XIX century was as a part of the Karabakh khanate which was the vassal of Persia. After the Russian-Persian wars (1804-1813), Karabakh carried over the Russian Empire. Inhabitants of the Karabakh territory had their own culture, customs, and religiously were Muslims. At the beginning of the XX century, Nagorno-Karabakh became the arena of interethnic fight twice in 1905-1907 and 1918-1920. In 1919, the League of the Nations at the Parisian peace conference recognized this territory as disputable. At the time of the Soviet Union, Nagorno-Karabakh belonged to the Azerbaijan Republic. For almost 70 years the power of Baku carried out various forms of ethnoreligious, demographic and economic discrimination in relation to inhabitants of Karabakh, trying to expel Armenians from the territory of Karabakh and to occupy this territory with Azerbaijanian migrants.
Escalation of the conflict took place in 1987; the settlement of Chakhardla of the Shakhmorsky region of the Azerbaijani Soviet Socialist Republic became an occasion. Chakhardla wasn't included in the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous region and the Armenian was elected as Chakhardla's chairman. The Baku power ousted him and demanded to leave the territory of Azerbaijan from the population. The leaders of the Shakhmorsky region carried out two disorders in Chakhardly in October and December, 1987. After these events, Armenians of Karabakh came to a conclusion that further stay under the power of Baku can lead to the new accidents.
On February 20, 1988 council of People's Deputies of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous region appealed to the leadership of Armenia and Azerbaijan to consider possibility of an exit of their region from the structure of Azerbaijan and to join Armenia.
In two days, the armed groups of the Azerbaijani military were sent to the capital of Karabakh to bring “an order”. And in 5 days after the attack, the Soviet Union was shocked by a surprising event - massacre of Armenians in the Azerbaijani city of Sumgait, located near Baku. Within two days, tens of people were brutally killed and crippled. After overdue arrival in the city of the Soviet internal troops and groups of militia, all 14000 Armenians, living in the city, in a panic left Sumgait.
Geopolitically Karabakh is situated in the territory of both Armenia and Azerbaijan. At the time of the USSR Karabakh was as a part of Azerbaijan, but most of the population consisted of Armenians.
On September 2, 1991 the creation of the Declaration of independence was initiated at the regional level. On January 6, 1992 the independence of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic was declared with the capital in the city of Stepanakert. The management in Baku decided to expel Armenians from the territory, and Yerevan stood up for the Armenian population. It became a reason for the military conflict between the states.
The Nagorno-Karabakh republic is not recognized in the global democratic community, it was recognized only by Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and the Dnestr Moldavian Republic. The border between Armenia and Azerbaijan is uneasy because diversions and firing constantly appear there. Since the beginning of 2013 four Azerbaijani soldiers were lost, 250 times the ceasefire regime was broken.
For today, the problem of Karabakh is completely ignored in the negotiation process and in the international political practice. The chief international actors aren't interested in the solution of this problem. Karabakh is attractive from the touristic point of view. Thus, Stepanakert is in isolation and political blockade, and foreign policy communications happen through Armenia. In the interview for Wall Street Journal in November, 2012 the president of Armenia Serge Sargsyan emphasized that Azerbaijan waits for an opportunity for renewal of military operations. The December’s meeting of Council of ministers of foreign affairs of OSCE in Dublin, Baku and Yerevan wasn't successful to come for adoption of the mutually acceptable document which reflected three basic principles of settlement of the conflict, including a principle of non-use of force in the solution of controversial issues.
In February, 2013 the Azerbaijani army staged the next large-scale drills near the border with Nagorno-Karabakh. But it should be noted that in October, 2013 the Armenian party also staged large-scale drills in the region. At the same time, Baku declared the forthcoming two-month military gatherings of reserve officers. There were also offers on introduction of some "particular military regime in limited territories".
In my opinion, this conflict at first can be characterized as an ethnopolitical conflict which developed into the war for the territory between two states over time. According to Mai Nguyen, the ethnopolitical conflict can be defined as "any episode of sustained violent conflict in which national, ethnic, and religious or other communal minorities challenge governments to seek major changes in status" (Nguyen 1). And also it is very hard to make any forecasts or predictions how this international issue will be solved in the future. In addition, the difficulty of this problem is in the exhaustion of the methods or ways to resolving this conflict: both military and diplomatic routes came to the deadlock. I think, the leaders of each party should find humanism in themselves and show respect to their opponent, and all this process must be built on the plot of constructive negotiations for the sake of both nations.

Works cited

Cornell, Svante E. Undeclared War: The Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict Reconsidered. Journal
of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies Vol. XX, no. 4, Summer 1997. Retrieved from:
http://www.isdp.eu/images/stories/isdp-main-pdf/1997_cornell_undeclared-war.pdf
Khalid, Iram. Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict. Journal of Political Studies, University of the
Punjab, Pakistan. (n.d.). Retrieved from:
http://pu.edu.pk/images/journal/pols/Currentissue-pdf/karabakh.pdf
Nduyen, Mai. Causes of Ethnic Conflict: Examining the Role of Religious Diversity
and Contagion Effects, Creighton University, PLS 591. (n.d.). Retrieved from:
http://www.creighton.edu/fileadmin/user/CCAS/docs/Mai_Nguyen.pdf
Parkinson, Joe. “Armenia accuses neighbor of stocking conflict”. The Wall Street Journal,
updated on November 9, 2012. Retrieved from:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887324073504578107041885362034