Distributed at request
INF / 192 /96�
16 October, 1996
Original: Russian

(page 2)

Contents

I. Concise historical information on Azerbaijan                                                   3

1. Azerbaijan in antiquity and in the Middle Ages                                                 4

2. The independent Azerbaijani khanate States.�
   ��� The conquest of the khanates by Russia������������������������������������������������������ 6

3. The First Republic: the Republic of Azerbaijan.�
   ��� (1918-1920)����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������7

4. The Second Republic: the Azerbaijan�
   ��� Soviet Socialist Republic (1920-1991)��������������������������������������������������������9

5. The Third Republic: the Republic of Azerbaijan���������������������������������������������� 10

�

II. The Historical background, causes and essential elements of the�
������� present-day Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict�����������������������������������             13

1. The resettlement of Armenians�
   ��� in the territory of Azerbaijan                                                                      13

2. The transfer of Azerbaijani territories to Armenia������������������������������������������ 16

3. The Nagorno-Garabagh Autonomous Region�
   ��� of the Azerbaijan SSR������������������������������������������������������������������������������17�

References�������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������20�����

I. CONCISE HISTORICAL INFORMATION ON AZERBAIJAN

"The people of Azerbaijan have the inalienable right to choose their own form of government, determine their relations with other nations and develop their political, economic and cultural life in conformity with their historical and national traditions and with the values common to all humanity."

From the Constitutional Act on the State independence�
of the Azerbaijan Republic of 18 October 1991.

Medieval geographers included into Azerbaijan the territories from Derbent in the north to Hamadan, Qazvin and Zenjan in the south. The Caspian sea served as its eastern boundary, and in the west there were lands populated by the Azerbaijanis, where later the Armenian Republic was formed. At all times the Azerbaijanis represented a leading and large ethnic and linguistic group on this vast territory.�

Azerbaijan - a country with a history extending back over several millennia - is located at the crossroads of different cultures. The ships depicted on the wall drawings at Gobustan near Baku have been dated by scientists as belonging to the end of the sevenths or beginning of the sixth millennium before the Common Era. the famous Norwegian explorer, Thor Heyerdahl, who specially traveled to Baku in 1979 and 1994 to study these drawings, believes that the shores of the Caspian were in fact the cradle of a civilization that later spread over water southward and northward, and that the ancient people, who inhabited these areas were the common, distant ancestors of the present-day Norwegians and Azerbaijanis. Heyerdahl found confirmation of his hypothesis not only in the representations of the Gobustan piraguas replicated thousands of years later by the Vikings on rock faces of Norway, but also in sagas that were written late as the Middle Ages. According to one of these sagas, committed to writing 1241 by the Icelander Snorr Stulasan, Odin, the founder of the Viking royal dynasty, arrived in Scandinavia on a "well-built ship" from a region known as Aser, which explains why he is frequently referred to "Asar-Odin". In his book, Snorr correctly identifies the place where the legendary Aser people lived as the mountains of the Caucasus. [1]

The wall drawings of the ships, surmounted by an image of the sun, that have been discovered in Gobustan also confirm the connection between the early settlements of Azerbaijan and the Sumerian-Akkadian (page 4) civilization of Mesopotamia, which has bequeathed to history similar cultural monuments. The country's name is derived from a combination of words that has since acquired its present form and originally meant "the fire-preserving land".

1. Azerbaijan in antiquity and in the Middle Ages

�According to Sumerian cuneiform sources ("En-Merkar and the ruler of Aratta", "En-Merkar and En-Sukushsiranna", "En-Merkar and Lugalbanda, "Lugalbanda and Mount Hurrum"), the first State to be formed on the territory of Azerbaijan as it is known to history was the State of Aratta, which sprung up to the south and south-east of Lake Urmia in the first half of the third millennium before the Common Era. In the twenty-third century before the Common Era, the second ancient State to arise on the territory of Azerbaijan - the State of Lullubum - came into being to the south of Lake Urmia. By that time Aratta had ceased to exist. In the second half of the third millennium before the Common Era, the state of Kutium was established to the west and southwest of Lake Urmia (Western Azerbaijan). In the year 2175 before the Common Era the forces of Kutium conquered Sumer and Akkad, where they ruled for 100 years.�

At the end of the third century before the Common Era, the States of Lullubum and Kutium disintegrated into minor kingdoms, which continue to exist until the beginning of the first millennium of the Common Era. The most ancient Azerbaijani States maintained political, economic and cultural ties with Sumer and Akkad, were part of the overall region of Mesopotamian civilization and were ruled by dynasties of Turkic origin. The Turkic-speaking peoples, who inhabited the territory of Azerbaijan from the most remote period of antiquity were fire worshippers and professed one of the world's oldest religion - Zoroastrianism.

The State of Manna was established in southern Azerbaijan in the ninths century before the Common Era and continued to exist until the seventh century before the Common Era. In the seventh and sixth centuries before the Common Era, the western part of southern Azerbaijan saw the existence of the Cimmerian-Scythian-Saka kingdom. The authority of this kingdom also extended to a part of northern Azerbaijan.

An important role in the history of Azerbaijan was played by the State of Atropatene, which was formed in the southern part of the territory around (page 5) the year 320 before the Common Era and was considerably influenced by Hellenism.�

In the third century before the Common Era the State of Caucasian Albania, with its southern borders extending along the river Araks, was formed in the north of Azerbaijan. The people of Albania (one of the ancestor nations of the present-day Azerbaijanis) consisted of various ethnic groups, the overwhelming majority of whom spoke Turkic languages. Albania was converted to Christianity in the year 313. Albania, whose territory included Garabagh, successfully withstood constant aggression on the part of the Armenian State. The Armenian State was destroyed by the Romans in the year 66 before the Common Era and never revived since then.�

Since the beginning of the eighths century, Islam has been the dominant religion in Azerbaijan. As part of this process, most of the Albanians, were converted to Islam, although some retained their own religion. The Khurramite movement, headed by Babak in Azerbaijan at the beginning of ninth century, incorporated the ideas of freedom, independence and universal equality.�

During the period from the ninth to the eleventh centuries, the territory of Azerbaijan was the scene of the formation of a number of independent States - those of the Shirvanshahs, Sajids, Salarids, Ravvadids and Sheddadids, and, at the beginning of the twelfth century, the Atabay Eldegiz State (1136-1225).

During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the Khachen Principality came to the fore in the mountainous part of Karabakh under the rule of Albanian kings. The rule of Hasan Jalal (1215-1261) ushered in an Albanian renaissance and saw the completion of the construction of the Gandzasar monastery complex, which became the cathedral of the country's first capital.�

In the 1250s the Hulagid dynasty (1258-1357) came to power in Azerbaijan. The Hulagids were replaced by the Jelairids (1359-1410), while on the lands to the north-east of the Kura river the Shirvanshahs continued to rule.

In 1410 power in Azerbaijan passed to the Garagoyunlu dynasty, and in 1468 to the Aghgoyunlu. The year 1502 saw the beginning of the rule in Azerbaijan of the Safavid dynasty, which created a powerful State, whose territory extended from the Amu-Darya to the Euphrates and from (page 6) Derbent to the shores of the Persian Gulf. Azerbaijani noblemen occupied a leading position in the Safavid State, whose official language was Azerbaijani.�

An achievement of paramount importance by the ruling Azerbaijani elite during the reign of the Aghgoyulus and Safavids was the establishment of relations and the development of dialogue with the countries of the West: the Archduchy of Austria, the Kingdom of Bohemia, the Margravate of Magdeburg, Schleswig-Holstein, the Duchy of Mecklenburg, the Rzecz Pospolita, the kingdom of Spain, and the Venetian and Genovese Republics. The founder of the Safavid State, Shah Ismail I, and the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, Charles V, exchanged messages regarding the conclusion of a military alliance. In 1616, the English merchants were granted the right to trade in the Safavid State.�

The extremely difficult foreign-political situation that emerged at the end of the first quarter of the eighteenth century around the Safavid State forced Shah Tahmasib II to dispatch to St. Petersburg an envoy who personally signed, on 23 September 1723, the treaty of St. Petersburg with Peter I. That treaty provided for the transfer to Russian control of a strip of Azerbaijan located along the Caspian Sea and including the cities of Derbent and Baki and also the regions of Gilyan, Mazendaran and Gorgan. The treaty, however, was not recognized by Tahmasib II. Russian troops seized Baki and Salyan.�

2. The independent Azerbaijani khanate States.

The conquest of the khanates by Russia

�Beginning in the middle of the eighteenth century, Azerbaijan experienced a period of feudal fragmentation and consisted of independent khanates. Upper Garabagh, which was inhabited primarily by Azerbaijani Muslims (Albanian Christians also resided there), was an integral part of the Azerbaijani Garabagh Khanate, which consisted mainly of the territories between the Kura and the Araks rivers.

At the end of the eighteenth century and during the first third of the nineteenth century, Azerbaijan, because of its favourable strategic and geopolitical location, became an arena of struggle for hegemony between Iran and the Russian and Ottoman Empires. A number of khanates rose in arms to defend their State sovereignty; others, in an effort to defend their (page 7) interests, were forced to conclude agreements reducing them to the status of vassals.�

For example, on 14 May 1805 a treaty was signed on the banks of the River Kurak with the Azerbaijani Khan Ibrahim Khalil calling for the transfer to Russian rule of the independent Azerbaijani Garabagh Khanate. This is an important document in international law, attesting, as it does, to the fact that Garabagh is historically a part of Azerbaijan.�

It is important to stress that, in accordance with article 2 of the treaty, the Russian Tsar gave "his imperial undertaking to maintain the integrity of the present possessions" of Ibrahim Khan of Shusha and Garabagh and his rights. The first Russo-Iranian war (1804-1813) for the establishment of hegemony over the independent Azerbaijani State entities led to the first division of Azerbaijani territories between Russia and Iran. The aftermath of that war was the signing of the Treaty of Gulistan of 12 October 1813, which, in its article III, established the seizure, "as property of the Russian Emperor, of the khanates Karabag and Ganja, which has now been transformed into a province under the name Elizavetpol, and also the khanates Sheki, Shirvan, Derbent, Kuba, Baku and Talysh" [2].

The year 1826 saw the outbreak of the Second Russo-Iranian War (1826-1828). At the conclusion of that war, a treaty was signed on 10 February 1828 in the village of Turkmanchai. Under the provisions of article III of that treaty, "the Khanate of Erivan on either side of the Araks and the Khanate of Nakhichevan" became the "absolute property of the Russian Empire" [3].

3. The First Republic: The Republic of Azerbaijan (1918-1920)�

Despite the cruel countermeasures of the Russian Empire, the desire of its outlying areas for national self-determination began to acquire increasingly tangible forms at the beginning of the current [i.e. XX c.-editor] century. After the fall of the Tsarist regime and the Bolshevik October Revolution in 1917, the Azerbaijani people continued its advance towards independence as it struggled against the arbitrary rule of the Bolshevik Baki Soviet, headed by Armenian extremist S. Shaumian. In March 1918, the Soviet military formations, consisting of Armenians, carried out barbarous pogroms in the Baki, Shamakhy and Guba districts of Azerbaijan leading to the death of more than 10.000 innocent Azerbaijanis.

(page 8) The date 28 May 1918, when the Azerbaijan Republic was proclaimed, became the starting point for the short-lived but glorious history of the first democratic State in the East. Starting out from Ganja, the seat of the government of the young republic, the summer offensive of the newly created national army against the military units of the Baki Soviet culminated in the defeat of the latter and the liberation of the Azerbaijani territory from the Bolshevik Dashnak elements, thus saving the people of Azerbaijan from total genocide and opening the country's way to the sovereignty.

One of the Azerbaijani Government's first moves, guided by the principle of good-neighbourliness, was to hand over the city of Iravan (Yerevan), to the Republic of Armenia, which had proclaimed its independence but had no land of its own [4]. As a result, the territory of the Armenian State that had been formed amounted to no more than part of the Iravan region (the districts of Vedi-Basar and Millistan); 90 per cent of the residents of this region were Azerbaijanis [5].

Not satisfied with this, the Dashnak Government of Armenia raised claims to Akhalkalaki and Borchaly, which were part of the Republic of Georgia, and to the Azerbaijani State's territories of Nakhchivan, Zangazur and Garabagh, the Armenian population of which, at its congress in 1919, decided to remain within the Azerbaijan Republic [6]. Armenian's territorial claims were the cause of a conflict with Georgia and a bloody war with Azerbaijan.�

The Azerbaijan Republic was engaged in building a democratic society based on the rule of law under very difficult conditions for the establishment of its statehood. The Republic's foreign and domestic policy were based on the principles set out in the historic Milli Shura (National Council) Declaration, which stated that the Azerbaijan Republic was endeavouring to establish good-neighbourly relations with members of the international community, in particular with neighbouring nations and States; that it guaranteed within its territories civil and political rights to all citizens regardless of their nationality, religion social status and sex, and to all ethnic groups population its territory; and that it would provide every opportunity for the free development of the individual [7].

The Azerbaijan Republic of 1918-1920 maintained diplomatic relations with Armenia, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Georgia, Great Britain, Greece, Iran, Italy, Latvia, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine and the United States of America. Treaties (page 9) on the principles of mutual relations were signed with a number of States, and 16 countries opened their missions in Baku. An outstanding achievement of Azerbaijani diplomacy was the conspicuous participation of the national delegation in the work of the post-war Paris Peace Conference and the de facto recognition of the independence of the Azerbaijan Republic by the Supreme Council of the Allied Powers (Entente) on 11 January 1920.

4. The Second Republic: the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic
(1920-1991)

The independence of Azerbaijan was interrupted after the invasion of the 11th Bolshevik Red Army, which on 28 April 1920 proclaimed the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR). In 1922 the Azerbaijan SSR was incorporated into the USSR, within which the attributes of independence of the constituent republics were of a purely formal nature.

In reply to the territorial ambitions of the Armenian SSR, the Caucasus Bureau of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party (of Bolsheviks), at its meeting on 5 July 1921, passed decision to keep the Nagorno-Garabagh part of the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic within the borders of the latter, regarding it as the Azerbaijani territory from time immemorial. At the same time, taking into account the interests of the local Armenian population it was proposed to the Government of Azerbaijan that it should grant Nagorno-Garabagh broad autonomy.

On 7 July 1923 the Azerbaijani Central Executive Committee issued the "Decree on the Formation of the Autonomous Region of Nagorno-Garabagh". Through this decree, the Government of the Azerbaijan SSR, acting in the interests of its citizens of Armenian nationality, created an autonomous entity on the territory of Azerbaijan. This fact totally refutes the demagogic assertions of Armenian politicians and historians to the effect that Nagorno-Garabagh was transferred to the Azerbaijan SSR only in 1923. While this was happening, the 300.000 Azerbaijanis who were living in compact settlements in Armenia were refused even cultural autonomy both by the Central Government of the USSR and by the Government of the Armenian SSR. This refusal represented an infringement of their rights and led ultimately to their dramatic and forcible eviction from the territory of Armenia.�

Not yet satisfied with what they had achieved, the Armenian nationalists, in pursuit of their plans, adopted the tactic of negotiations among high- (page 10) level Communist Party officials. In 1945, the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Armenia, Mr. Arutyunov, submitted for the consideration of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (of Bolsheviks) a proposal to incorporate the territory of the Nagorno-Garabagh Autonomous Region in the Armenian SSR. On that occasion, the Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the AUCP(B), Malenkov, sent an inquiry to Mr. Bagirov, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan, asking him his opinion. M. Bagirov expressed his consent, but on condition that the Azerbaijan SSR would retain the Shusha region and that three regions in Armenia bordering Azerbaijan and populated predominantly by Azerbaijanis would be turned over to Azerbaijan. This deal came to naught since the real aim of the Armenian leaders was to expand the territory of Armenia at the expense of what had historically always been Azerbaijani lands.

�5. The Third Republic: the Republic of Azerbaijan

Beginning at the end of the 1980s, an awareness of the need for radical socio-political reforms and for the consolidation of conditions to permit the achievement of national sovereignty began to take root in Azerbaijani society. The political activism of the masses of the Azerbaijani people intensified as the "games in the corridors of power" being played yet again by the Communist leaders of the USSR with regard to the fate of Nagorno-Garabagh continued to drag on. The extraordinarily difficult struggle of the people of Azerbaijan for freedom and restoration of independence - a struggle whose most tragic milestone was the introduction on 20 January 1990 of units of the Soviet Army into Baki and other Azerbaijani cities and the killing by those forces of hundreds of peaceful citizens - led to the adoption on 30 August 1991, by the national Parliament, of the "Declaration on the Restoration of the State Independence of the Azerbaijan Republic", the dissolution on 14 September 1991 of the Communist Party of Azerbaijan, and the adoption by Parliament on 18 October 1991 of the "Constitutional Act on the State Independence of the Azerbaijan Republic". On 2 March 1992 Azerbaijan became a member of the United Nations.

As a result of the serious losses in the region of Nagorno-Garabagh, Mr. Ayaz Mutallibov, who on 19 May 1991 had been appointed by Parliament and on 8 September 1991 had been elected the President of the Azerbaijan Republic, was forced to resign in March 1992.

(page 11) Following the elections of 7 June 1992, Mr. Abulfaz Elchibay, the leader of the opposition Popular Front, became the President of Azerbaijan. However, serious mistakes were subsequently committed in the course of building the new State. Under these conditions, Mr. Heydar Aliyev was invited to Baki and was elected Chirman of the Supreme Soviet (Parliament) of Azerbaijan. The national referendum of 30 August 1993 brought a vote of no confidence in Mr. Elchibay. Under a decision of Parliament, in accordance with the Constitution of the Azerbaijan Republic, the powers of the President of the Azerbaijan Republic were transferred to the Chairman of the Supreme Soviet. On 3 October 1993, as a result of national elections monitored by representatives of 17 countries and a number of international organizations, Mr. Aliyev was elected President of the Azerbaijan Republic.

One of president Aliyev's most outstanding achievements was the signing on 20 September 1994, of a contract between the State Oil Company of the Azerbaijan Republic and the consortium of Western oil companies. This contract, which provides for the joint exploitation of the fields at Chiragh and Azeri and also of the deep-water section of the Guneshli site in the Azerbaijani sector of the Caspian Sea, was concluded for a period of 30 years.

On 12 November 1995, as a result of national referendum, a new constitution� was adopted in Azerbaijan and elections to Milli Majlis (National Council) were held.

The process of restoring the statehood of the Azerbaijan Republic has been complicated by the aggression of Armenia, which has territorial claims on Azerbaijan. As a result of undeclared war that Armenia has been waging against Azerbaijan since 1988, some 20 per cent of the territory of Azerbaijan has been occupied and, as a consequence of a policy of ethnic cleansing, more than one million Azerbaijanis have been evicted from the territory of Armenia. On the Azerbaijani side, some 30.000 persons have died, some 200.000 have been maimed and injured, and more than 4.000 have been taken prisoner and, under conditions of inhuman treatment, are to this day being detained as hostages in Armenia.

As part of the process of strengthening its independence, Azerbaijan, which has been the victim of external aggression, has insisted on - and continues to insist on - its sovereign right to ensure its territorial integrity and the security of its citizens, while at the same time not abandoning the (page 12) hope for a settlement of the conflict on the basis of the principle of the peaceful resolution of disputes.

The conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan has been the subject of discussion in various international organizations. All the resolutions adopted by the international organizations on this conflict have affirmed as an unshakeable element the principle that it should be settled on the basis of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Azerbaijan Republic and the inviolability of its internationally recognized borders, and have expressed the inadmissibility of the use of force to seize territory.

In 1993 the United Nations Security Council adopted resolutions 822 (30 April), 853 (30 June), 874 (14 October) and 884 (11 November), in which the Council, in addition to recognizing the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, demanded the immediate cessation of military activities and the immediate, full and unconditional withdrawal of occupation forces from all the occupied regions of the Azerbaijan Republic. The Republic of Armenia refused to comply with these demands contained in the Security Council's resolutions.

At its meeting in Helsinki on 24 March 1992, the Ministerial Council of the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) adopted a decision to hold a conference on Nagorno-Karabakh under the auspices of the CSCE and with the participation of the 11 States making up the Minsk Group (from the name of the city selected as the venue for the conference). The negotiations within the framework of the Minsk Conference of the OSCE are proceeding with difficulty because of the obstructionist position of Armenia, which is unwilling to settle the conflict in a way that preserves the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, although this integrity is an essential condition if it is to be possible to grant autonomous status to the population of Nagorno-Garabagh. As a token of its commitment to the principle of the peaceful settlement of conflicts, on 12 May 194 Azerbaijan succeeded in securing a ceasefire agreement.

"...We prefer that this problem should be solved primarily in a peaceful manner, through negotiations. ...By making effective use of the possibilities of the United Nations, the CSCE, the United Nations Security Council, the major States participating in the settlement of this conflict, and all the international organizations, we shall continue to make every effort to take Azerbaijan out of the state of war and recover the occupied territories" [8].

�

(page 13)

II. THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND, CAUSES AND�
ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS OF THE PRESENT-DAY
ARMENIAN-AZERBAIJANI CONFLICT

1. The resettlement of Armenian in the territory of Azerbaijan

The Russian Empire regarded the Armenian Christian population living in the Ottoman Empire and Iran as a key element in the achievement of its far-reaching Eastern policy, which was designed to secure for Russia access to the shores of the Persian Gulf. The Russian authorities began to exploit the Armenian factor as early as the eighteenth century.

Taking advantage of the weakened condition of the Safavid State, on 10 November 1724 Peter I issued a decree allowing the Armenians . who were being assigned the role of a "fifth column" in implementing the Russian Empire's plans to seize vast territories to the south of the Caucasus, as far as the Persian Gulf - to settle in a strip of Azerbaijani land located along the Caspian Sea and containing the cities of Derbent and Baki as well as the regions of Gilyan, Mazandaran and Gorgan. As part of this scheme, the Russian generals were instructed to "displace" the local Azerbaijani population in any way they could. However, Russia's subsequent military reversals in the Caucasus blocked this planned resettlement of the Armenians.

Under the terms of the Turkmanchai Treaty, 40,000 Armenians were resettled in Azerbaijan. Following the conclusion in 1829 of the Peace Agreement in Edirne, 90,000 Armenians who had been living in the Ottoman Empire were also resettled in Azerbaijan. The Russian authorities resettled the Armenians primarily on the territory of the Nakhchivan, Iravan and Garabagh khanates.

As the well-known Russian diplomat and writer, A.S.Griboyedov, has written, "the Armenians have for the most part been settled on the lands of Muslim landowners... The settlers... are forcing out the Muslims... We also discussed at some length the work of persuasion to be done with the Muslims in order to reconcile them to their present hardships, which would not continue for a long time, and to rid them of the fear that the Armenians would maintain permanent possession of the lands to which they had once been allowed to move" [9].

In pursuing their colonial policy in the Southern Caucasus, the leaders of the Russian Empire banked heavily on the Armenians resettled in (page 14) Azerbaijan. In the work of the American scholar, Justin McCarthy, the following data are given on the colonization of the Southern Caucasus or, more accurately, of Azerbaijan by the Armenians. Between 1828 and 1920, when a policy was being implemented to alter the demographic structure of the population of Azerbaijan in favour of the Armenians and. to the detriment of the Azerbaijanis, "over two million Muslims were forcibly exiled and an unknown number of them were killed... On two occasions, in 1828 and 1854, the Russians invaded Eastern Anatolia... and on both occasions they were forced to retreat, taking 100,000 Armenians with them to the Caucasus, where they were resettled in place of the Turks (Azerbaijanis) who had emigrated or perished.

In the war of 1877-1878, Russia seized the Kars-Ardagan district, forced out the Muslims and settled 70,000 Armenians there... During the events of 1895-1896, approximately 60,000 Armenians were resettled in the Caucasus... Migration during the First World War was fairly balanced . 400,000 Armenians from Eastern Anatolia were exchanged for 400,000 Muslims from the Caucasus" [10].

According to the figures given by this American academic, 560,000 Armenians were resettled in Azerbaijan between 1828 and 1920. In this way, it was precisely after the conquest of the Southern Caucasus by Russia that the Armenian population on the territory of Azerbaijan north of the River Araks began to increase rapidly. Quite noteworthy in this same connection is also the admission of Z.Balaian: "Its (Yerevan's) residents are people who have come from other places. There are practically no true Yerevanites" [11]. Academician A.I.Ionisian writes that "one-fourth of the population of the city of Erivan were Armenians, with the Azerbaijanis constituting a majority" [12].

In accordance with a decree of the Russian Emperor Nicholas I of 21 March 1828, the Nakhchivan and Iravan khanates in Azerbaijan were abolished and replaced by a new administrative unit known as the "Armenian Oblast [Region]", governed by Russian officials. In 1849 this region was renamed the Erivan Guberniya [Province].

In pursuit of their far-reaching goals, the Armenians succeeded in bringing about the abolition by the Russian authorities in 1836 of the Albanian Christian Patriarchate, which had been operating in Azerbaijan, and the transfer of its property to the Armenian Church. Somewhat later, in a situation where the population in the western districts of the former Albania . namely the Garabagh region, which Armenian elements were continuing to penetrate in the nineteenth century - had lost both statehood (page 15) and ecclesiastical independence, there began a process of the Gregorianization (i.e., Armenianization) of the local Albanian population.

The truth of this situation was already well known in the nineteenth century. The famous Russian historian, V.L.Velichko, wrote: "An exception were the inhabitants of Karabakh, incorrectly called Armenians ..., who professed the Armenian-Gregorian faith...and who had gone through the process of Armenianization only three to four centuries earlier." This was also known by the Armenian author, B. Ishkhanian, who wrote: "The Armenians residing in Nagorno-Karabakh are partly aborigines and descendants of the ancient Albanians ..., and partly refugees from Turkey and Iran, for whom Azerbaijani lands offered a refuge from persecution. and oppression." [13]

The ideological justification for the territorial claims of the Armenians in the Southern Caucasus were linked to the formation of the nationalist parties "Armenakan" in 1885 in France, "Gnchak" (Bell) in 1887 in Geneva, and "Dashnakzutyun" (Union) in 1890 in Tiflis. These parties set themselves the task of using armed uprisings and terrorist actions to unite the territories on which Armenians who had been resettled from Iran and the Ottoman Empire were living.

The "Gnchak" programme contains, in particular, the following call: "To kill Turks and Kurds under any conditions, never to spare Armenians who have betrayed their cause, and to take revenge upon them" [14].

"Dashnakzutyun" was an authentic Nazi-style party, which anticipated by 30 years the ideology of the National Socialist Party of Germany and whose programme contained the words: "The objective of the Dashnakzutyun Party is to form an anarchist, democratic republic. The means of achieving this objective are the following: 1) armed insurrection; 2) intensive work to develop a revolutionary mentality among not only the Armenians; 3) the arming and organization of the Armenians; 4) terror and the destruction of government persons and institutions" [15]. "To achieve this objective, everything is permitted: propaganda, terror, merciless guerrilla warfare." [16]

Recounting the consequences of the activities of the Dashnakzutyun, the Georgian writer, Karibi, wrote with bitterness in 1919: "The Dashnaks arrived, bringing with them national hatred. And on such a soil, need it be said, nothing but Armenian-Muslim carnage and war between Armenia and Georgia was able to grow." [17]

(page 16) It was organizations of this kind, together with the authorities of the Russian Empire, who were intent on curbing the revolutionary and nationalist liberation movement in the Caucasus, that provoked the first confrontations between Armenians and Azerbaijanis in 1905. Between 1907 and 1912 approximately half a million Armenians from the Ottoman Empire and Iran moved to the Kars, Erivan and Elizavetpol regions, where a vast majority of the population was made up of Azerbaijanis. This movement of population took place with the connivance of the Russian administration, whose aim was to push the situation in the area of inter-ethnic relations to the limit and so strengthen Russia's dominion over the region [18].

2. The transfer of Azerbaijani territories to Armenia

The migration of Armenians to the Southern Caucasus in the first half of the nineteenth century and their settlement mainly in Azerbaijan was accompanied by the separation of territory from Azerbaijan and its incorporation in the "Armenian Oblast" that had ' been created within the Russian Empire. The expansion of the territory of Armenia continued into the present century. As recently as 29 May 1918, the Government of the Azerbaijan Republic ceded part of the Erivan district (the former Iravan Khanate) to the Republic of Armenia. This also, however, proved to be too little for the Armenian Government, and between 1918 and 1920 part of Garabagh, Zangazur and the Lake Geija (now Sevan) district . a total area of 9,000 square kilometres . was seized by force of arms.

After the formation of the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic, its leaders at the time did not demand the return of the Azerbaijani territories. On the contrary, there then ensued the next "peaceful" stage of land seizure, realized with assistance from the Communist leadership of Russia and the Soviet Union. In 1921, Armenia's "acquisition" of the Zangazur district and a significant part of the Gazakh district, totalling approximately 9,000 square kilometres and populated to a large extent by Azerbaijanis, was legalized [19]. As a result of the transfer of Zangazur to Armenia, the Nakhchivan area was cut off from Azerbaijan.

In 1922 the Bolsheviks dealt in similar fashion with the Azerbaijani lands of Dilijan and Geija. In 1929 a number of villages were taken from Nakhchivan and annexed to the Armenian SSR. In 1969 the Armenian SSR again expanded its territory at the expense of Azerbaijan by taking land as far east as the Gadabay district. Under pressure from the central (page 17) authorities, Azerbaijan "transferred" a number of villages in the Gazakh district to Armenia.

3. The Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region of the Azerbaijan SSR

The Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region (NKAO) occupied the south-eastern part of the Lesser Caucasus and covered an area of 4,388 square kilometres. The territory of the region stretched for 120 kilometres from north to south and for 35-60 kilometres from east to west. It included five administrative areas . Askaran, Gadrut, Mardakert, Martuni and Shusha. The chief town is Khankandi (Stepanakert). The population of the NKAO, according to estimates for the beginning of 1989, was 187,000, consisting of: 137,200 Armenians, or 73.4 per cent; 47,400 Azerbaijanis, or 25.3 per cent; 2,400 representatives of other nationalities, or 1.3 per cent [20].

Contrary to the assertions of Armenian nationalist leaders concerning violations of the rights of the Armenian minority in Azerbaijan, the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region possessed all the fundamental attributes of self-government and achieved a high rate of development in the social, economic and cultural fields. The well-known historian and specialist in Turkic affairs, Audrey Alstadt, says that "...Armenian villages were incorporated within the territorial borders [of the former NKAO when it was artificially established by the Bolsheviks], whereas Azerbaijani villages were excluded in order to ensure an Armenian majority" [21].

Audrey Alstadt further notes that in the former NKAO "the Armenian language was designated as an official language for administrative purposes and in everyday life" and that "the staffs of territorial, legislative and party organs, as well as the senior staff members and employees of cultural and educational establishments, were, in the overwhelming majority, Armenians from the moment of the creation [of the former NKAO] [22]. From the facts in question, the writer concludes that "the cultural and administrative character of the region favoured Azerbaijani emigration ... and, as regards the problems and abuses that existed [in the former NKAO], they should be laid at the door of the local Armenians who ... were administering Nagorno-Karabakh, and not of Baku [23].

The legal status of the NKAO, under the Constitution of the Azerbaijan SSR, was defined by the Law on the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region adopted on the recommendation of the Soviet of People's Deputies of the NKAO by the Supreme Soviet of Azerbaijan. The Nagorno- (page18) Karabakh Autonomous Region, as a national-territorial entity, enjoyed administrative autonomy and, accordingly, possessed a number of rights that, in practice, allowed the specific requirements of its population to be met. Under the Constitution of the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), the NKAO was guaranteed representation by five deputies in the Soviet of Nationalities (one of the two equal chambers of the parliament) of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. Twelve deputies from the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region sat in the Supreme Soviet of the Azerbaijan SSR.

The Soviet of People's Deputies of the NKAO . the organ of State authority in the Region . was vested with a broad spectrum of powers. It took decisions on all local matters, on the basis of the interests of citizens living in the territory covered by the Soviet, bearing in mind national and other particularities of the Autonomous Region. The Council of People's Deputies of the NKAO participated in the consideration of issues affecting the whole Republic and made its proposals concerning them. All organs of State authority and government administration, the judiciary and the Office of the Public Prosecutor, the managements of production enterprises, and the educational and cultural institutions conducted their work in the Armenian language, in line with the linguistic needs of the population.

During the rule of the Soviet Union, the Nagorno-Karabakh region developed faster than Azerbaijan as a whole. Thus, while the industrial output of the Republic as a whole rose by a factor of 3 in the period from 1970 to 1986, the figure for the NKAO was 3.3 (annual growth rates here were above 8.3 per cent). Capital investment rose by a factor of 3.1 in the period from 1970 to 1986 in the Region, and by a factor of 2.5 in the Republic. The basic indices for social development (living standards) in the NKAO exceeded the average indices for the Azerbaijan SSR and the Armenian SSR. Particularly noteworthy was the higher level, in comparison with the Republic, of the provision of housing, goods and services to the population. The housing space available to each inhabitant of the NKAO was nearly one-third greater than the average for the Republic. Per inhabitant of the Region, there were more intermediate-level medical personnel (by a factor of 1.3) and more hospital beds (by 3 per cent).

Possessing an advantage over practically all the other regions of Azerbaijan in terms of coverage by cultural and educational institutions (schools providing general education, specialized secondary educational establishments, general libraries, museums, clubs, and arts and crafts (page 19) centres) geared to the linguistic needs of the local population, the Autonomous Region enjoyed the most favourable conditions for the preservation of the identity of the Garabagh Armenians and, in general, of the ethnic and cultural particularities of the area. Not only was there a network of music and drama clubs, but a professional company performed in the regional capital at the Drama Theatre, where most of the plays staged were by Armenian playwrights.

Persons passing the university qualification examination who wished to receive a higher education without leaving the country had the possibility of entering the Pedagogical Institute in Khankandi (Stepanakert). Scientific personnel were concentrated in two scientific institutions, in the Leninavan community and the main town of the NKAO. Five periodical publications in Armenian appeared in the Region. Unlike other administrative-territorial units of Azerbaijan located at a distance from the capital of the Republic in mountainous areas, the Region had its own infrastructure for the reception of television and radio programs.

The whole history of the development of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region within Azerbaijan, which became a kind of promised land for several generations of descendants of the Armenians who had earlier settled there, shows that not only was this development in conformity with the interests of the Armenian population of Upper Garabagh, and the economic, social and demographic features of this area, but that . more than this . the Region enjoyed, in accordance with the principle of "positive discrimination" that is widely applied in the civilized world, a privileged place in relation to the rest of Azerbaijan.

The Armenians, who were first resettled during the nineteenth century by the Tsarist authorities in the Azerbaijani lands of Nakhchivan, Iravan and Garabagh, and who in the 1920s, with the support of the Bolsheviks, created the Armenian SSR on the territory of the former Iravan Khanate and an autonomous district in the Nagorno-Garabagh region of Azerbaijan, have now waxed insolent to the point where they are demanding independence for the Armenians of Nagorno-Garabagh, with a view to uniting them, at a later stage, with Armenia itself. Will there ever be an end to this expansion?

(page 20)

REFERENCES

1. Newspaper "Trud", 26 April 1995. (In Russian)
2. Soviet-Iranian Relations in Treaties, Conventions and Agreements.�

Moscow, 1946, pp. 24-29. (In Russian) 3. Ibid., p. 30.�
4. State Archives of the Azerbaijan Republic (GAAR), F. 970, op. 1, d. 1, 1.
��� 51. (In Russian)�
5. Ibid., F. 894, op. 10, d. 104, 1. 1-3.
6. State Archives of Political Parties and Movements in the Azerbaijan Republic (GAPPODAR). F. 1, op. 1, d. 11, 1. 91. (In Russian)
7. Collection of Laws and Orders of the Government of the Azerbaijan Republic. Baki, 1919, No. 1, article 1. (In Russian)
8. From the inaugural address of the President of the Azerbaijan Republic, G. A. Aliyev, on 10 October 1993. Newspaper "Bakinski Rabochi". 12 October 1993. (In Russian)
9. Griboyedov, A.S. Too Clever by Half. Letters and Notes. Baki, 1989, p. 387. (In Russian)
10. McCarthy, Justin. Armenian Terrorism. History as Poison and Antidote. Ankara, 1984, pp. 85-94. (In Russian)
11. Balaian, Z. Hearth. Yerevan, 1984, p. 110. (In Russian)
12. Yonisian, A.I. Armenian-Russian Relations in the 18th Century. Vol. 2, part I, Yerevan, 1964, p. 23. (In Russian)
13. Quoted from: Aliyev, I. Nagorno-Karabakh: History, Facts, Events. Baki, 1989, pp. 73-74. (In Russian)
14. Malevil, Georges. The Armenian Tragedy of 1915. Baki, 1990, p. 79. (In Russian)
15. Central State Archives of the October Revolution (TsGAOR) of the USSR, F. 102, op. 253, d. 280, l. 1-12. (In Russian)
16. Malevil, Georges. Op cit., p. 80. (In Russian)
17. Quoted from: Pompeyev, Yu. A. The Bloody Clamp of Karabakh. Baku, 1992, p. 67. (In Russian)
18. State Archives of Political Parties and Movements in the Azerbaijan Republic (GAPPODAR). F. 276, op. 8, d. 277, l. 48. (In Russian)
19. Ismailov, M., Tokarzhevsky, E. Truth and Fiction. The Conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh. Baki, 1990, p. 28. (In Russian)
20. This section presents data obtained from the State Committee on Statistics of the Azerbaijan Republic.
21. Levon Chorbajian, Patrick Donabedian, Claude Mutafian. The Caucasian Knot: The History and Geo-Politics of Nagorno-Karabakh. Zed Books, London and New Jersey, 1994, p. 13.
22. Ibid.
23. Ibid.

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