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At @EurasiaNet we have been covering this conflict for long before this week. If you are trying to study up on the conflict, here are some of our pieces from the last few years that may offer useful background. A thread:
A dispatch from Kelbajar, one of the territories surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh, formerly entirely populated by ethnic Azerbaijanis, that have been gradually settled by ethnic Armenians. This has been one of the key sticking points between the two sides. https://eurasianet.org/for-armenians-theyre-not-occupied-territories-theyre-the-homeland
A report on the Azerbaijanis displaced from the areas now under control by Armenian forces. A generation after the war, parents are trying to make sure their children maintain the same devotion to that land that they do: https://eurasianet.org/azerbaijanis-displaced-by-war-seek-to-keep-memories-alive
A dispatch from Talish, an Armenian village right on the front line (which Azerbaijanis claim to have captured yesterday): https://eurasianet.org/karabakh-villagers-wary-of-returning-to-showcase-village-on-frontline. It was destroyed in 2016, and its former residents were wary of cooperating with efforts to rebuild it and for them to move back.
For more background, @LaurenceBroers wrote the essential book for understanding the foundations of the conflict. You should read it, but you could start with my review here: https://eurasianet.org/book-review-armenia-and-azerbaijans-enduring-rivalry
Last year, there was a brief moment of optimism that serious peace negotiations between Armenia and Azerbaijan might be possible, as the two sides issued a promise to “prepare the populations for peace”: https://eurasianet.org/armenia-and-azerbaijan-agree-to-prepare-populations-for-peace
There did briefly appear to be some fruit from the attempts to “prepare the populations for peace,” with a small retreat from both sides on the contentious wars over the historical narratives of the conflict: https://eurasianet.org/on-emotional-anniversaries-in-the-caucasus-tentative-signs-of-softening
A few months later, though, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan visited Karabakh and announced that “Karabakh is Armenia – period!” To Azerbaijanis, that was the last nail in the coffin of the peace process. https://eurasianet.org/pashinyan-calls-for-unification-between-armenia-and-karabakh
Meanwhile, Azerbaijan’s government has been increasingly casting doubt on Armenians’ own historical claim to the current territory of Armenia, by claiming that the area is “really” historically Turkic: https://eurasianet.org/azerbaijan-president-calls-for-return-to-historic-lands-in-armenia
Even as relations deteriorated, there was a notable first last year: journalists from Armenia and Karabakh visited Azerbaijan, and vice versa. It could have gone worse: https://eurasianet.org/armenian-azerbaijani-journalists-make-landmark-exchange
Improbably, the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan held a public debate on their conflict earlier this year in Munich. It couldn’t have gone much worse: https://eurasianet.org/armenian-azerbaijani-leaders-spar-in-unprecedented-public-debate
Still, ceasefire violations had been markedly down until recently. Part of the reason appeared to be the coronavirus: https://eurasianet.org/coronavirus-quiets-fighting-between-armenia-and-azerbaijan
The two sides still managed to find more history to dispute: this time, who collaborated more with fascists during World War II. https://eurasianet.org/armenia-azerbaijan-trade-nazi-collaboration-accusations
Relatively heavy fighting broke out in July, the worst since 2016. https://eurasianet.org/fighting-between-armenia-and-azerbaijan-widens And the respective stories that the two sides’ media told about the conflict were remarkably similar – just with the roles reversed: https://eurasianet.org/armenia-azerbaijan-see-mirror-images-in-conflict
Following the July fighting, there was an unprecedented level of interethnic conflict between Armenians and Azerbaijanis around the world, from Moscow to Los Angeles: https://eurasianet.org/fighting-between-armenians-and-azerbaijanis-spills-beyond-caucasus
The events since the July fighting seemed to lead inexorably toward the outbreak of fighting that we are witnessing now: https://eurasianet.org/new-armenia-azerbaijan-fighting-a-long-time-in-the-making /end
