Ours Not Yours

Nagorno-Karabakh The predominantly Armenian region became a source of dispute between the republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan when both countries gained independence from the Russian Empire in 1918. After the Soviet Union expanded into the South Caucasus, it established the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO) within the Azerbaijan SSR in 1923. On December 10, 1991, as the Soviet Union was collapsing, a referendum held in the NKAO and the neighboring district of Shahumian resulted in a declaration of independence from Azerbaijan as the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR), which remains unrecognized by any international organization or country, including Armenia. In the final years before the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the region was again a source of dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan, culminating in the Nagorno-Karabakh War. Since the end of the war in 1994, most of Nagorno-Karabakh and several regions of Azerbaijan around it remain under joint Armenian and NKR Defense Forces control. The parties have been holding peace talks mediated by the OSCE Minsk Group ever since. Cyprus In 1974, following a period of violence between Greek and Turkish Cypriots and an attempted Greek Cypriot coup sponsored by the Greek military junta of that period, Turkey invaded and occupied one-third of the island. This led to the displacement of thousands of Cypriots and the establishment of a separate Turkish Cypriot political entity in the north. This event and its resulting political situation is a matter of ongoing dispute. Kosovo The province is the subject of a long-running political and territorial dispute between the Serbian (and previously, the Yugoslav) government and Kosovo's Albanian population. International negotiations began in 2006 to determine the final status of Kosovo. According to many news media, it is widely expected that the result will be some form of independence.Russia currently, however, has suggested that it will not support independeence in the UN Security Council if an agreement is not reached between Belgrade and Priština.