Armenians and Azerbaijanis fought two wars over Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountain region inside Azerbaijan whose people were mostly Armenian. Armenians won the first, in the 1990s, and held the region and a wide belt around it for a quarter of a century. Azerbaijan won the second in 2020 and took what remained in a single day in 2023, after which the entire Armenian population, about a hundred thousand people, left. The two states have since agreed the text of a peace treaty under American sponsorship. It has not been signed.
The wider region and the powers around it: The South Caucasus between Russia and the West.
Where it stands · September 2026
Armenia's foreign minister does not rule out swaps of the small enclaves each side holds inside the other once the border is delimited. The United States used the promise of Nvidia chips to help secure the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace deal. Türkiye and Armenia made progress in their normalisation process, according to Erdoğan. Pashinyan and Erdoğan stressed the importance of advancing that process and their readiness to give new impetus to relations.
What the dispute is about
The signature. Azerbaijan says it will sign only after Armenia removes from its constitution a reference to a 1990 declaration that speaks of uniting with Karabakh. That requires a referendum which Armenia's government may not win.
The road. Azerbaijan wants unhindered passage across southern Armenia to its exclave of Nakhichevan and on to Turkey. Armenia insists the road stays under its sovereignty. The arrangement of 2025 gives an American consortium the right to develop it.
The people. Armenia asks for the release of Karabakh's former leaders and other prisoners held in Baku, and for a right of return for those who left. Azerbaijan in turn raises the Azerbaijanis who were driven out of Armenia itself in the late 1980s.
