As tensions between the two countries remain high, three Armenian soldiers have been killed in Azerbaijani shelling.
What exactly is the point of contention?
- Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh, an Azerbaijani breakaway area ruled by ethnic Armenians, imposed martial law and mobilised their male populations.
- Armenia said that Azerbaijan launched an air and artillery strike on Nagorno-Karabakh.
The Nagorno-Karabakh region is the epicentre.
- Nagorno-Karabakh declared independence from Azerbaijan in 1991, following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
- After thousands of people were slain and many more were displaced, a ceasefire was reached in 1994.
- Azerbaijan and Armenia routinely accuse each other of carrying out assaults in the vicinity of Nagorno-Karabakh and along the separate Azeri-Armenian border.
The economics of the confrontations
- The riots sparked a rush of diplomacy to avert a resurgence of a decades-old war between largely Christian Armenia and predominantly Muslim Azerbaijan.
- Pipelines transporting Caspian oil and natural gas from Azerbaijan to the rest of the world pass near Nagorno-Karabakh.
- The battles have stoked fears of instability in the South Caucasus, a route for pipelines carrying oil and gas to global markets.
Source: https://www.cfr.org/global-conflict-tracker/conflict/nagorno-karabakh-conflict