Exodus in the Caucasus
Azerbaijan puts former Nagorno-Karabakh leadership on trial
In 2023, Azerbaijan invaded Nagorno-Karabakh. More than a hundred thousand people had to flee. The conquerors are now accusing the political leadership of serious crimes.
After retaking the Armenian-populated enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh in 2023, authoritarian Azerbaijan is putting 16 Armenian leaders on trial. Two criminal trials are set to begin in the capital Baku. The former head of government of the internationally unrecognized Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh (called Artsakh in Armenian), Ruben Vardanyan, is individually charged. He is accused of, among other things, terrorism, crimes against humanity and the state of Azerbaijan.
At the same time, according to state media, 15 other politicians from Nagorno-Karabakh are being tried in Azerbaijan’s capital Baku, including the last president of the conflict region, Arajik Harutyunyan, as the Azerbaijani news agency APA reports. Several German human rights organizations criticized the proceedings as politically motivated show trials and called on the German embassy to observe the negotiations.
Historical dispute between Azerbaijan and Armenia
The dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh has been going on for more than a hundred years – particularly intensely since the fall of the so-called Iron Curtain. Until the fall of the Soviet Union (), the “Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast” belonged to the “Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic” (AsSSR) and was therefore part of the USSR.
At the beginning of the 1980s, the USSR collapsed and the sovereign states of Azerbaijan and Armenia emerged. From an international perspective, Nagorno-Karabakh was part of the territory of Azerbaijan, even though the area was predominantly populated by Armenians. An escalation seemed inevitable: in 1991, Nagorno-Karabakh declared itself independent and had to permanently defend this status because both Armenia and Azerbaijan laid claim to the region. Two wars followed with numerous deaths on both sides. Armenia won the first in 1994 and Azerbaijan won the second in 2020.
Nagorno-Karabakh maintained itself as a kind of state in the South Caucasus with the help of the Armenian army. In September 2023, troops of Azerbaijani leader Ilham Aliyev brought the area back under their control. More than 100,000 people fled to the motherland of Armenia for fear of repression. Many of their leaders were arrested and taken to Baku. Only a small group of around 6,000 people moved to Russia to find protection there.
Sources: , , with news agency DPA
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Source: Stern
I have been working in the news industry for over 6 years, first as a reporter and now as an editor. I have covered politics extensively, and my work has appeared in major newspapers and online news outlets around the world. In addition to my writing, I also contribute regularly to 24 Hours World.
