Azerbaijan and Armenia issued conflicting statements regarding control of Shusha, a key strategic city in the contested Nagorno-Karabakh region. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev announced that Azerbaijan had taken control of the city on Sunday, but Armenian officials refuted the claims shortly thereafter. The statements follow nearly two months of renewed fighting in the region (including three failed ceasefires) and mark the latest in a decades-long conflict between the two nations.
More context: The conflict began in the late 1980s, when the ethnic Armenians who control the Nagorno-Karabakh region (which lies within Azerbaijan’s border) voted to become part of Armenia. That decision ultimately led to a war between the two nations that temporarily ended with a ceasefire in 1994. Over 1,000 people have been killed in the recent fighting, which broke out in late September.
