Professional Documents
Culture Documents
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round of military preparations between Armenia and Azerbaijan (see
EDM, April 6, May 5, 2016). But as bloody incidents along the Armenia-
Azerbaijan state border and in Karabakh have intensified, another historically
contested region—Nakhchivan—may yet re-emerge as an additional sore
point between Yerevan and Baku. With everyday stresses there significantly
less intense compared to Karabakh, the Nakhchivan dimension of the
Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict is often downplayed by many security experts.
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So although Nakhchivan is today internationally recognized as part of
Azerbaijan, Armenian society continues to view this region as an inherent
part of Armenian cultural and historical heritage—much like Karabakh. This
sense prevails despite repeated cases of destruction of Armenian cultural
heritage sites in Nakhchivan since 2001 (PanArmenian, March 3, 2014).
While military clashes between Yerevan and Baku have tended to cluster
mainly around Karabakh, the Nakhchivan segment of the Armenia-
Azerbaijan state border has remained unpredictable and fraught with
explosive potential. Periodic skirmishes around Nakhchivan are nothing new.
Notably, clashes erupted there in 2014–2015, leaving at least four Armenian
soldiers dead (RFE/RL, June 6, 2014; 1in.am, June 27, 2015). In retaliation,
the Armenian side reportedly succeeded in entrenching itself in nearby high
ground, thereby attaining strategic positional advantage overlooking
Nakhchivan City. As a result, Armenian Armed Forces gained the ability to
directly observe as much 50 percent of the autonomous republic’s territory
(Horizon Weekly, July 27, 2015).
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Since the ceasefire regime established in Karabakh in 1994–1995, the
Nakhchivan region has undergone a strategic transformation—from a
defensive stronghold to a formidable bridgehead from which locally
stationed, self-sufficient military forces could conduct a variety of combat
operations. In late 2013, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev established the
Nakhchivan Separate Army on the basis of the Fifth Army Corps (Trend,
December 20, 2013). Azerbaijan further massed its forces in the region by
adding two newly formed infantry units and boosting the rocket artillery
arsenal. The newly formed artillery brigade service is equipped with Turkish-
manufactured T-300 Kasirga (180 km range), T-122 Sakarya (40 km range)
and Russian-supplied 9K58 Smerch (60–90 km range) multiple rocket
launchers. To counter this threat, Armenia retains two Army Corps with two
rocket artillery brigades, tank units and up to five Motorized Infantry
Regiments stationed all along the perimeter of the Azerbaijani exclave
(Regnum, January 14).