• Nagorno-Karabakh is a landlocked, mountainous and forested region with a population of around 150,000, falling within the boundaries of Azerbaijan.
• Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azeri President Ilham Aliyev announced that their respective countries would be setting up border security and delimitation commissions, signalling a step towards resolution of a decades-long conflict over the Nagorno-Karabakh Enclave.
• Nagorno-Karabakh, called Artsakh in Armenian, hosts a predominantly ethnic Armenian population with an Azeri minority.
• It is located in the South Caucasus region, which straddles the border between eastern Europe and western Asia and spans the southern part of the Caucasus mountains.
• Nagorno-Karabakh lies in the mountainous range of Karabakh.
• The capital of Nagorno-Karabakh is Stepanakert, with Susha being another major city in the region.
• The conflict has its origins in the early 20^th century, though the present conflict began in 1988, when the Karabakh Armenians demanded that Karabakh be transferred from Soviet Azerbaijan to Soviet Armenia.
• The conflict escalated into a full-scale war in the early 1990s which later transformed into a low-intensity conflict following the end of the war, later escalating into another full-scale war in 2020.
• The fighting resulted in a ceasefire agreement on November 10, 2020, following which territories lost by Azerbaijan during the First Nagorno-Karabakh war were returned to Azerbaijan.

Model Question :

Q. Which of the following countries borders Caspian sea?

1. Azerbaijan
2. Armenia
3. Russia
4. Iran
5. Turkey

Select the correct answer using the code given below :

(a) 1, 2 and 4 only

(b) 1, 3 and 4 only

(c) 2 and 5 only

(d) 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5

Answer : B

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