Nagorno-Karabakh conflict
The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict[f] is an ethnic and territorial conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the region of Nagorno-Karabakh, inhabited mostly by ethnic Armenians until 2023, and seven surrounding districts, inhabited mostly by Azerbaijanis until their expulsion during the 1990s. The Nagorno-Karabakh region was entirely claimed by and partially controlled by the breakaway Republic of Artsakh, but was recognized internationally as part of Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan gradually re-established control over Nagorno-Karabakh region and the seven surrounding districts.
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Fatalities
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Throughout the Soviet period, Armenians in the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast were heavily discriminated against. The Soviet Azerbaijani authorities worked to suppress Armenian culture and identity in Nagorno-Karabakh, pressured Armenians to leave the region and encouraged Azerbaijanis to settle within it, although Armenians remained the majority population.[63] During the glasnost period, a 1988 Nagorno-Karabakh referendum was held to transfer the region to Soviet Armenia, citing self-determination laws in the Soviet constitution. This act was met with a series of pogroms against Armenians across Azerbaijan, before violence committed against both Armenians and Azerbaijanis occurred.[64]
The conflict escalated into a full-scale war in the early 1990s following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The war was won by Artsakh and Armenia, and led to occupation of regions around Soviet-era Nagorno-Karabakh. There were expulsions of ethnic Armenians from Azerbaijan and ethnic Azerbaijanis from Armenia and the Armenian-controlled areas.[65] The ceasefire ending the war, signed in 1994 in Bishkek, was followed by two decades of relative stability, which significantly deteriorated in the 2010s. A four-day escalation in April 2016 resulted in hundreds of casualties but only minor changes to the front line.
In late 2020, the large-scale Second Nagorno-Karabakh War resulted in thousands of casualties and a significant Azerbaijani victory. An armistice was established by a tripartite ceasefire agreement on November 10, resulting in Azerbaijan regaining all of the occupied territories surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh as well as capturing one-third of Nagorno-Karabakh itself.[66] Ceasefire violations in Nagorno-Karabakh and on the Armenian–Azerbaijani border continued following the 2020 war. Azerbaijan began blockading Artsakh in December 2022, and launched a large-scale military offensive in September 2023,[67][68][69] resulting in a ceasefire agreement. Most ethnic Armenians fled,[70] and Artsakh was officially dissolved on 1 January 2024.[71][35]
Azerbaijani laundromat
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In 2017, an Azerbaijani laundromat money-laundering scheme organized by Azerbaijan was revealed by the OCCRP. The report revealed that between 2012 and 2014, Azerbaijan created a slush fund of USD $2.9 billion used to bribe European and American politicians, journalists, lawmakers, and academics to lobby for Azerbaijani interests abroad, including promoting a pro-Azerbaijan agenda for the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. This form of bribery has been referred to as "caviar diplomacy".[485][486][487] The laundering scheme has operated by wiring millions of euros into the private bank accounts of influential Western figures and by providing them with luxurious trips to Azerbaijan. The European Azerbaijani Society (TEAS) lobbying group has played a large role in this by hiring European PR professionals, pariliment members, and former ministers.[488]
Azerbaijani-American businessman Adil Baguirov had been lobbying in Washington through secret funding from Azerbaijan’s state oil company since 2013. Baguirov runs the non-profit Houston-based US Azeris Network, which received a $253,150 transfer after organizing and hosting a conference in Baku attended by 10 American members of Congress. In 2003, Baguirov began working as Special Advisor on Russia and the former Soviet Union to Congressman Curt Weldon. Weldon and another Congressman, Solomon Ortiz, both founded the Congressional Azerbaijan Caucus in 2004. The Congressional Azerbaijan Caucus was a frequent recipient of Azerbaijani laundromat funds. From 2008 to 2016, Baguirov was invited almost annually by the United States House Appropriations Subcommittee on State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs to suggest economic and military aid budgets for Azerbaijan and Armenia. In 2008, Baguirov lobbied for greater aid to be given to Azerbaijan, citing equity and neutrality. But by 2012, Baguirov lobbied for aid to Armenia to be reduced to zero, while requesting that Azerbaijan be granted $26 million from USAID and $3.9 million in military aid.[485]
It was revealed in 2017 that German politician and former Parliamentary State Secretary Eduard Lintner had lobbied on behalf of the regime in Azerbaijan and been involved in the laundromat scandal. In 2009, Lintner had founded the Society for Promoting German-Azerbaijani Relations, which was funded by the Azerbaijani government and lobbied for Azerbaijan in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.[489]
The 2012 laundromat investigation revealed several bank transfers in 2012, totalling more than USD $9 million, made to the Hungarian MKB Bank account in Budapest right around the time when, amid international controversy, the Hungarian government extradited the convicted Azerbaijani murderer Ramil Safarov to Azerbaijan.[490] Several media outlets suggested a connection between Viktor Orbán's visit to Baku in June and the first instalment of $7.6 million transferred to the bank account in July, since by the end of August Safarov was handed over to Azerbaijan.[491][492][493][494][495][496]
In January 2017, following a series of critical reports and concern expressed by many members of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), the Assembly's Bureau decided to set up an independent, external body to investigate allegations of corruption in PACE.[497][498] The investigation body's final report was published in April 2018,[499] finding "strong suspicions of corruptive conduct involving members of the Assembly" and naming a number of members and former members as having breached the Assembly's Code of Conduct. Many of the members or former members mentioned in the report were sanctioned: four members[500] were deprived of certain rights and 14 members,[501] accused of accepting gifts and bribes from the government of Azerbaijan, were expelled from the Assembly's premises for life.[502]
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1988–1994
An estimated 28,000–38,000 people were killed between 1988 and 1994.[269]
Armenian military fatalities were reported to be between 5,856[270] and 6,000,[268] while 1,264 Armenian civilians were also killed.[270] Another 196 Armenian soldiers[270] and 400 civilians were missing.[271] According to the Union of Relatives of the Artsakh War Missing in Action Soldiers, as of 2014, 239 Karabakhi soldiers remain officially unaccounted for.[272]
Azerbaijan stated 11,557 of its soldiers were killed,[273] while Western and Russian estimates of dead combatants on the Azerbaijani side were 25,000–30,000.[268][274][270] 4,210 Azerbaijani soldiers[271] and 749 civilians were also missing.[271] The total number of Azerbaijani civilians killed in the conflict is unknown, although 167–763 were killed on one day in 1992 by the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh's forces.[275]
1994–2019
Although no precise casualty figures exist, between 1994 and 2009, as many as 3,000 people, mostly soldiers, had been killed, according to most observers.[55] In 2008, the fighting became more intense and frequent.[276] With 72 deaths in 2014, the year became the bloodiest since the war had ended.[106] Two years later, between 1 and 5 April 2016, heavy fighting along the Nagorno-Karabakh front left 91 Armenian (11 non-combat)[277][116] and 94 Azerbaijani soldiers dead, with two missing.[117] In addition, 15 civilians (nine Armenians and six Azerbaijanis) were killed.[278][279]
Azerbaijan stated 398 of its soldiers and 31 civilians were killed between 1994 and up to September 2020, right before the start of the 2020 conflict.[280] In comparison, the Caspian Defense Studies Institute NGO reported 1,008 Azerbaijani soldiers and more than 90 civilians were killed between 1994 and 2016.[281]
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