Nagorno-Karabakh: a conflict lasting for more than three decades

Since the beginning of 1988, there has been a conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region. It grew out of the interstate conflict, and since the beginning of the 1990s and the collapse of the Soviet Union, it has an interstate dimension. Although the conflict culminated in the war between 1992 and 1994, after which a peace agreement was signed, it was never fully concluded, but further escalated with the four-day war in 2016, as well as the war in 2020. The international community is involved in resolving the conflict through the Minsk Group of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. For more than two decades, the Minsk Group, co-chaired by the Russian Federation, France, and the United States, has been involved in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict resolution process, but no final solution has been reached. The paper describes the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh, as well as numerous attempts by the Minsk Group to finally resolve the conflict, concluding that, although described as “frozen”,1 the conflict is fluid, dangerous and can escalate at any moment