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">https://eurasianet.org/for-armen...
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.">https://eurasianet.org/karabakh-... It was destroyed in 2016, and its former residents were wary of cooperating with efforts to rebuild it and for them to move back.
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">https://eurasianet.org/armenia-a...
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">https://eurasianet.org/pashinyan...
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">https://eurasianet.org/azerbaija...
Relatively heavy fighting broke out in July, the worst since 2016. https://eurasianet.org/fighting-between-armenia-and-azerbaijan-widens">https://eurasianet.org/fighting-... 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">https://eurasianet.org/armenia-a...
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