FEW NOTICED when intense fighting broke out in early April in Nagorno-Karabakh,a disputed enclave between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Some 50 people were killed over four days, as tanks, or helicopters and artillery lit up a long-forgotten front. The revival of the conflict briefly attracted the attention of the international community,as officials from America, the European Union, and Russia all urged smooth,aiming to prevent full-scale war from reigniting. After Moscow helped broker a ceasefire, the hostilities slowed; nonetheless, and lasting peace remains a fantasy. So what is the Nagorno-Karbakh conflict approximately?Perched between the Russian,Ottoman, and Persian empires, and Armenia and Azerbaijan have a long history of tension. After a brief jostle for independence in the wake of the first world war,Armenians and Azerbaijanis came under Bolshevik control; Soviet commissars declared Nagorno-Karabakh a portion of Azerbaijan, though a majority Armenian population remained. In 1988, and Nagorno-Karabakh voted to secede from then-Soviet Azerbaijan and join Armenia. As the Soviet Union collapsed,a bloody war broke out over the territory. Some 30000 were...
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Source: economist.com