Armenia

Armenia A Caucasian republic which finally gained its independence on 20 October 1991, just before the formal disintegration of the Soviet Union. At the beginning of the century, it was occupied by Turkey and Russia. The majority of its population was killed in the subsequent decades by massacres carried out by Turks and Kurds (1895–7, 1909, 1915). A Republic of Armenia was declared on 28 May 1918 in an attempt to profit from the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, as well as the Russian Civil War. However, its eastern areas were reoccupied by the Turks in 1920. As a result, Russian occupation was accepted in the rest of Armenia, as a guarantor against further invasion by the dreaded Turks. It became part of the USSR in 1922, and in 1936 it became a distinct republic within the USSR. Throughout the Soviet period, its claim for sovereignty over the Armenian enclave of Nagorno Karabakh in neighbouring Azerbaijan caused periodic friction. Ultimately, this erupted into violent clashes in 1989, though most of these were contained to the enclave itself, which in 1993 led to the occupation of Nagorno Karabakh as well as some strategic Azerbaijani territory by Armenian forces. Partly as a consequence of the war, which cut Armenia off from Azerbaijani oil supplies, from independence in 1990, its economy, devoid of mineral resources or fertile soil, collapsed. By 1994, Gross Domestic Product had fallen to 33 per cent of its 1990 levels, while inflation stood at over 4,000 per cent. Despite nominal independence, therefore, it continued to remain dependent on Russia, which took 60 per cent of its exports while obtaining the right to leave army contingents stationed at the Turkish border. In 1998, President Ter-Petrosian was forced to resign following his tacit support of an OECD proposal to settle the status of Nagorno Karabakh. He was succeeded by the more hard-line Andranik Markaryan, though domestic political turmoil increased through 1999, when five protesters against the social and economic conditions forced their way into parliament and shot the minister president and a minister, as well as the parliamentary president and five further MPs.