On April 1, an obscure conflict in Azerbaijan’s breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh nearly devolved back into full-scale war between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Transatlantic leaders called for an end to the violence and for redoubled efforts to settle the underlying political conflict but did little else. Russian President Vladimir Putin, by contrast, launched decisive actions to shore up Russia’s international reputation and pull Armenia and Azerbaijan away from the West.
The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict first erupted in 1988, when nationalists of the region’s Armenian ethnic majority led a successful bid for a referendum on independence from the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic. Clashes between …read more
Source: 168hours
