An emotional scene from the 2008 Iranian television series Prophet Joseph, where Joseph is reunited with his father Jacob after years of separation, evoked a deep sense of longing in Azerbaijani father Gameddin Mammadov. Overcome with emotion, he reflected on his own sorrow and voiced his hope, saying, “One day, I will reunite with my son like this.” Gameddin Mammadov was the father of 18-year-old Ikhtiyar Mammadov, his only son, who went missing in 1993 during the First Karabakh War in the battles in the Aghdara district. Tragically, Gameddin passed away without ever fulfilling his dream of reuniting with his son.

Even after wars have ended, silent killers remain hidden underground for years, waiting for an unsuspecting victim to step on them. “When a war is over, I think it’s a cowardly thing to leave the war behind you in minefields that hit women and children and the most vulnerable.” So said Paul McCartney, who has used his unique fame to draw attention to the mine problem in the world and participated in campaigns against landmines.

On 24 May 2024, Armenia returned four non-exclave border villages to Azerbaijan, in what was a landmark achievement in the peace process between the two South Caucasus neighbors. This marked the first time Armenia handed back territory it had captured from Azerbaijan in the early 1990s not through military coercion—as was the case during and immediately after the 2020 Second Karabakh War—but through bilateral negotiations.

One of the key features of national sovereignty is the existence of a defined state territory and borders. A defined state border is not only one of the fundamental factors for a country’s security, but it is also important for developing good relations with its neighbors by increasing trust and encouraging cooperation. Therefore, the agreement reached during the eighth meeting of the Armenia-Azerbaijan border commission at the Qazakh-Ijevan border crossing area represents a significant milestone for both countries as they embark on the border delimitation/demarcation process. This agreement involves the return of parts of four non-enclave villages of the Qazakh district to Azerbaijan, which were occupied by Armenian armed forces between 1990 and 1992.

I remember it like it was yesterday. “Armenians? Why? What is happening?” My mother exclaimed as she expressed surprise and even shock upon hearing the news about how ethnic-Azerbaijanis were being cleansed from Armenia in 1987. Her reaction was a typical one: most Azerbaijanis had no inkling that every single last ethnic-Azerbaijani would be cleansed from their homes in Armenia in a few short years and that, soon thereafter, Armenian forces would occupy around 20 percent of Azerbaijan, ethnically cleansing every Azerbaijani from there, too. “We all lived in peace,” was a common refrain heard amongst Azerbaijanis.

Armenia currently occupies eight Azerbaijani border and exclave villages, while Azerbaijan controls one Armenian village. This IDD Working Paper examines the strategic significance and implications of the mutual return of these villages within the context of the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace process. The paper argues that the return of these villages should be looked at within the framework of the mutual recognition of territorial integrity, rather than ongoing border delimitation discussions. It then examines innovative solutions for addressing the return of these villages within the broader framework of enhancing regional cooperation and connectivity. Lastly, it underscores the urgency of reaching an agreement on the return of these villages to facilitate sustainable peace, end regional fragmentation in the South Caucasus, ensure the region’s effective integration into the global trade system, and thus pave the way for economic prosperity.

Yerkrapah was established in 1993, during the First Karabakh War, as an organization of veterans. The name literally means: “defenders of the land,” a possible reference to Bachdban Hayreniats (translated as “Protectors of the Fatherland”), a secret, insurrectionist group established in Erzurum (Ottoman Empire, today Türkiye) in 1881, then dismantled by the Ottoman police in 1882, but having symbolic importance for Armenian nationalists by far superior to its short time of activity. Whatever the exact origin of its name, the organization seems to think of itself chiefly as a rival to the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF), a diaspora-backed nationalist organization and political party founded in 1890 in Tbilisi.

The biggest part of the territorial dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan was, as it is well known, the illegal occupation of Karabakh, which lasted three decades despite four resolutions of the UN Security Council and three decisions issued by the European Court of Human Rights calling Armenia an occupying power. However, by 1992, Armenia occupied—and is still occupying—eight villages that are not part of Karabakh. For obvious reasons, this question became more important for Azerbaijan after its victory in the Second Karabakh War and the subsequent reelection of Nikol Pashinyan in Armenia against revanchist opponents in 2021—both precipitating causes of the ongoing peace process between Baku and Yerevan.

Following the start of the Russia-Ukraine war, Western states responded with a series of severe sanctions and export restrictions aimed at undermining Russia’s economic capacity to fund the war. These sanctions primarily focused on Russia’s vital oil and gas industry, which serves as a major revenue source. Sanctions were also targeted at other sectors, like engineering, construction, manufacturing, and transportation. These measures effectively restricted Russia’s ability to import various products essential for its defense industry, including electrical and transportation equipment, technological components, machinery, and vehicle parts.

This document summarizes a roundtable discussion organized by the Institute for Development and Diplomacy on 14 September 2023 concerning the environmental impact on Azerbaijan of the operations of a metal smelting plant located in the town of Yeraskh in the Armenian province of Ararat. Participants included representatives from the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Water Resources Agency; scientists and experts in environmental law, members of civil society, and ADA University students also took part.

Despite earlier optimism, the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace talks are still ongoing and may be at a standstill. One of the stumbling blocks on the path to an agreement on a peace treaty is Yerevan’s unwillingness to explicitly recognize, in writing, Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity (although Armenian prime minister Nikol Pashinyan has made oral pronouncements to that effect several times). However, even this step—written recognition—should not be understood to be sufficient.

The conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia over Karabakh resulted in a massive humanitarian catastrophe in the region. Azerbaijan has become one of the largest refugee and IDP hosting countries in the world. During the last 30 years of occupation, refugees and IDPs received humanitarian aid from foreign donors, charity organizations, and the Azerbaijani government. When the Second Karabakh War ended the Armenian occupation, it opened new opportunities for full restoration of IDP's earlier hometowns and return to liberated areas.

On 17 March 2023 the International Criminal Court (ICC) dropped what was widely seen as a bombshell announcement: an arrest warrant against Russian president Vladimir Putin for war crimes Russian forces have allegedly committed in Ukraine. On 24 March 2023, a decision of the Constitutional Court of Armenia cleared the domestic obstacles for Armenia’s intent to join the Rome Statute of the ICC. However, these two events are only related insofar as the arrest warrants against Putin et. al. may well politically impede the ratification of the Rome Statute by Armenia.

This book is being published on the first anniversary of the end of the Second Karabakh War. The book delivers rigorously-crafted chapters examining a wide spectrum of topics including but not limited to, strategic implications of liberation of Karabakh, reconciliation of Azerbaijanis and Armenians, and rebuilding of post-conflict areas. The aim is to gather diverse perspectives and fresh ideas from ADA faculty members as well as others affiliated with the University that may be useful for readers in conceptualizing the regional updates.

This paper analyzes the results of this Munich meeting in light of the latest period of heightened antiAzerbaijani rhetoric in Yerevan and the ongoing protests of Azerbaijani eco-activists along the Lachin Corridor.

The plight of the ethnic-Azerbaijanis expelled from the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic during the last years of the USSR was never forgotten by the Republic of Azerbaijan. But since the end of 2022, this issue has taken on new importance in official speeches. This is particularly visible in the visit of the president of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, to the administrative building of the Western Azerbaijan Community in December 2022—his second visit since its unveiling in 2010.

This IDD Working Paper examines the role of the United States in the postwar peace negotiations process. Although both the United States and the EU were perceived as withdrawing from the region in the immediate wake of Second Karabakh War—with Russia gaining a seeming monopoly of influence over regional security issues (and Türkiye gaining a small but significant foothold)—they have increased their respective engagements in the South Caucasus in the past year or so. This is partly due to both the quality and scope of Moscow’s disengagement given its strategic distraction caused by the onset of Russia’s own war in the Ukraine theater.

This IDD analytic policy brief is published in the immediate aftermath of the 31 October 2022 trilateral summit in Sochi involving President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan of Armenia, and President Vladimir Putin of Russia. The signed outcome document of this meeting makes neither mention of nor allusion to the issue of the autonomy or ‘status’ of the ethnic-Armenian population of the Karabakh region of the Republic of Azerbaijan.

On 27 September 2020, a new war between Azerbaijan and Armenia erupted over Karabakh, which lasted 44 days and was brought to an end on 10 November 2020 thanks to Russian mediation. The end of the war resulted in new regional circumstances and a new reality on the ground. This became the backdrop against which talks on a peace treaty to end a decades-long enmity between Armenia and Azerbaijan is being conducted. To this can be added the new geopolitical situation that has arisen since the onset of the latest Russia-Ukraine war, which has seen the West provide unprecedented support to Kyiv, which has had reverberations in the South Caucasus and elsewhere in the Silk Road region. As a result, both Armenia and Azerbaijan have needed to change their respective security paradigms, creating challenges but also opportunities for intensified peace negotiations.

This IDD analytic policy brief seeks to provide informed guidance to those wishing to assess the likelihood of Armenia accepting the peace dividend on offer by Azerbaijan in the time ahead. It is published within the context of the second anniversary of the waging of the Second Karabakh War, a fortnight after brief yet deadly military clashes along the as-yet non-delineated state border between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and in the immediate aftermath of a meeting in Geneva between the foreign ministers of the two states that is portrayed, rightly, as the start of substantive negotiations on an omnibus peace treaty.

Terrorism remains an obstacle to peace in the South Caucasus. Despite the consistent willingness of Azerbaijan and a series of positive signs given by Armenia since the end of the Second Karabakh War, a peace treaty between Baku and Yerevan remains elusive. So does the normalization of relations between Ankara and Yerevan. Much of the responsibility for this suboptimal state of affairs lies with extremist elements of Armenian society operating both within the country and in the diaspora.

Geopolitical shift in the South Caucasus and the effect of the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Armenia on these. The reactions of regional powers like Russia and Iran on Armenia’s new foreign policy course. How will Pelosi’s visit change/affect the foreign policy of Armenia in the nearest future?