Azerbaijani – Armenian CONFLICT
Historical roots of the conflict.
From the middle of the XVIII century Azerbaijan went through the period of feudal division and was made up of independent khanates. Upper Karabakh inhabited mainly by Azerbaijanis formed a part of the Azerbaijani Karabakh khanate that included the territories between the Kur and the Araz.
When owing to their strategic and geopolitical situation Azerbaijani khanates got involved into the stratagem of fight which was led by Russia, Iran and the Ottoman empire for the spheres of influence some Azerbaijani entities were forced to conclude vassal agreements in order to defend their interests.
Thus, under the treaty of 1805 the independent Azerbaijani khanate of Karabagh was placed under Russian overlordship.
As a result of Russian-Iranian war of 1804-1813 and on the basis of the peace treaties of Gulistan and Turkmanchay, the Karabakh khanate together with Erivan and Nakhchevan khanates was included into the Russian Empire . It was exactly in that period when Armenians started to move to the region of Nagorny Karabakh in Azerbaijan which was inhabited mainly by the Azerbaijanis and the descendants of the ancient Albanians. This fact was proved by the famous Russian diplomat and playwright A.S.Griboyedov. Later, in 1836, after the second mass resettlement of Armenians in 1828-1829, the Russian authorities abolished Albanian Christian patriarchate and donated its property to the Armenian Church. After that when the western region of former Albania – the region of Karabakh lost its statehood and the church lost its independence, the local Albanian population was subjected to Gregorianization (Armenization) .
After the proclamation of the Azerbaijani Democratic Republic- the first democratic state in the muslim East on May 28,1918, one of the first moves of its government was the cession of the city of Erivan (Yerevan) to the Republic of Armenia which though proclaimed its