KENNAN CABLE - What’s at Stake in Nagorno-Karabakh: U.S. Interests and the Risk of Ethnic Cleansing

Since month, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) December 12, a group of activists, with support ordered the Azerbaijani government to do the from Azerbaijani government officials and military same.5 But the blockade continues into its fourth forces, have blocked the free movement of traffic month, threatening to derail Western-led peace along the only road connecting Nagorno-Karabakh to effo. [...] has Azerbaijan’s blockade of the Lachin Corridor is a its first opportunity since the fall of the Soviet Union pivotal moment in the conflict between Armenians to gain significant standing in the South Caucasus, and Azerbaijanis over the future of Nagorno-Karabakh. [...] The two have been in tension since the late years of the Soviet Union, though the seeds of the conflict At the 2023 Munich Security Conference in February, were planted long before that. [...] 81 l April 2023 the USSR, placed the Armenian-majority region of The government of Azerbaijan has long wanted to Nagorno-Karabakh within the boundaries of Soviet bring Nagorno-Karabakh under the federal control Azerbaijan,6 but granted Armenians of the region of Baku; the land controlled by Armenians before a high degree of cultural autonomy and self-rule. [...] Intervention from Washington captured the geopolitical zeitgeist of the 1990s: the was crucial to de-escalating flare-ups between new Russia working with leading countries of the Armenia and Azerbaijan over the past year, according West to solve problems in the former Soviet states.