August 08, 2014
After 20 years of quiet on the ceasefire line between Azerbaijan and Armenian rebels in the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, shooting broke out last week. Azerbaijan said eight of its troops were killed in the clash and Armenia said two of its troops died. Each side blamed the other for the outbreak of fighting.
An active war started in 1991 just after Armenia and Azerbaijan left the Soviet Union. A ceasefire was reached in 1994 after Armenians had not only seized the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, which is almost exclusively comprised of Armenian ethnics, but also several non-Armenian districts of Azerbaijan between Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia and also between Nagorno-Karabakh and Iran. Azerbaijan complains regularly that Iran favors Armenia and helps it even though it is Christian. Armenia doesn’t complain about Iran’s position at all.