Encyclopedia > Azerbaijan

  Article Content

Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan, a nation in the Caucasus of Turkic Muslims, has been an independent republic since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Despite a cease-fire, in place since 1994, Azerbaijan has yet to resolve its conflict with Armenia over the Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh enclave (largely Armenian populated). Azerbaijan has lost almost 20% of its territory and must support some 750,000 refugees as a result of the conflict. Corruption is ubiquitous and the promise of wealth from Azerbaijan's undeveloped petroleum resources remains largely unfulfilled. Critics of the government of Azerbaijan consider it to be a Kleptocracy.

Historically, Azerbaijan included parts of what are now Iran, and the term is still used locally to describe those regions. Politically, this area is now divided into the Iranian provinces of West Azarbaijan[?] (Azarbayjan-e Gharbi) and East Azerbaijan[?] (Azarbayjan-e Sharqi).

Much of the material in these articles comes from the CIA World Factbook 2000 and the 2003 U.S. Department of State website.



All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

 
  Search Encyclopedia

Search over one million articles, find something about almost anything!
 
 
  
  Featured Article
Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor

... war. In 1545 the opening of the Council of Trent began the Counter-Reformation, and Charles won to the Catholic cause some of the princes of the Holy Roman Empire. ...

 
 
 
This page was created in 28.1 ms