="justify">The nations seeking and fighting for their independence and freedom from the parent or colonial powers that have annexed them in the past have become order of modern civilization and globalization does promote the positive process of gaining freedom in a meaningful way.

Ğ ntries support the moves. Many nations have already secured independence and some more are still struggling for freedom. And sooner or later they will also, as natural outcome of the flow of history, achieve their legitimate ambitions. Recently, Kosovo has declared independence form Serbia , the successor state of Yugoslavia that became several smaller nations as a result of collapse of the Warsaw Treaty organization, led then by Soviet Union.

Nagorno-Karabakh region in the Caucasus Mountains in Azerbaijan , a former republic of Soviet Union that got independence in 1989, sought freedom, supported by neighboring Armenia another former Soviet republic, obviously for religiously reasons, but denied by parent Azerbaijan . In spite of the fact that Azerbaijan prevents the regain to become independent, Nagorno-Karabakh has already declared free form Azerbaijan . Although the region has declared its independence from Azerbaijan , this has not been recognized by any state. The region's ethnic Armenian leaders or the so-called "separatists" run their own affairs, with support from Armenia , but opposed by Azerbaijan .

Armenia's new president Serzh Sarksyan said on April 29 that Azerbaijan must accept that its breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region is an independent republic that will never be returned to Azeri control, Nagorno-Karabakh, broke away from Azerbaijan as the Soviet Union fell apart, sparking a war which killed about 35,000 people. A ceasefire was agreed in 1994 but the search for a lasting peace is stalled. " Azerbaijan must understand the simple reality that the existence of the republic of Nagorno-Karabakh 's independence is irreversible," said Sarksyan, who was sworn in this month.

Azerbaijan says Armenia has illegally occupied Nagorno-Karabakh, and a number of Azeri districts surrounding the region. Baku , which announced a 53 percent rise in military spending this month, says it is committed to stalled peace talks but has refused to rule out using force to restore its control.

Today, Nagorno-Karabakh is a de facto independent state, calling itself the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic . It is closely tied to the Republic of Armenia and uses the same currency, the dram. According to Human Rights Watch, "from the beginning of the Karabakh conflict, Armenia provided aid, weapons, and volunteers. Armenian involvement in Karabakh escalated after a December 1993 Azerbaijani offensive. Hence the stalemate continues.

Azerbaijan and Nagorno-Karabakh

Azerbaijan, a nation with an ethnic Azeri and Shiite Muslim majority population is a secular and unitary republic but Armenian populated Nagorno-Karabakh has opted out of Azerbaijan . Azerbaijan has been a co-founder of GUAM and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, and has been a member of the Commonwealth of Independent States since September 1993. The country has a Permanent Mission to the European Union, hosts a Special Envoy of the European Commission and is a member of the United Nations, OSCE, Council of Europe, and the NATO Partnership for Peace (PfP) program. Armenia. Nagorno-Karabakh, along with 7 other districts in Azerbaijan's southwest, have been controlled by Armenia bordering to the west since the end of the Nagorno-Karabakh War in 1994. Four United Nations Security Council Resolutions (822, 853, 874, and 884) called for "the withdrawal of occupying forces from occupied areas of the Azerbaijani Republic .

After the collapse of the Russian Empire during World War I, Azerbaijan , together with Armenia and Georgia became part of the short-lived Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic. When the republic dissolved in May 1918, Azerbaijan declared independence as the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic (ADR). The ADR was the first democratic parliamentary republic in the Muslim world, but lasted only 23 months until the Bolshevik Red Army invaded in April 1920. Overthrowing the ADR government, Bolsheviks established Azerbaijan SSR in Baku on April 28, 1920.as part of the USSR . During the World War II, During the 1940s, the Azerbaijan SSR supplied much of the Soviet Union 's oil on the Eastern Front of World War II. Close to 600,000 Azerbaijanis fought on this front against Nazi Germany.

Following the politics of glasnost, initiated by the last General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, civil unrest and ethnic strife grew in various regions of the Soviet Union, including Nagorno-Karabakh, a region of the Azerbaijan SSR. The disturbances in Azerbaijan, in response to Moscow's indifference to already heated conflict, resulted in calls for independence and secession from the USSR On October 18, 1991, Supreme Council of Azerbaijan adopted a Declaration of Independence which was affirmed by a nationwide referendum in December, 1991, when the Soviet Union was officially dissolved. The early years of independence were overshadowed by the Nagorno-Karabakh War with neighboring Armenia. By the end of hostilities in 1994, Azerbaijan lost control of up to 16% of its internationally recognized territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh itself.

The predominantly Armenian-populated region of Nagorno-Karabakh became disputed between Armenia and Azerbaijan when both countries gained independence from the Russian Empire in 1918. After the Soviet Union established control over the area, in 1923 it formed the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO) within the Azerbaijan SSR. In the final years of the Soviet Union, the region re-emerged as a source of dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan , culminating in the Nagorno-Karabakh War fought from 1988 to 1994.

The sovereign status of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic is not recognized by any state, including Armenia . Still, successive Armenian governments have resisted internal pressure to unite the two, due to ongoing negotiations under the auspices of the OSCE Minsk Group. Karabakh's independence allows the new Armenian state to avoid the international stigma of aggression, despite the fact that Armenian troops fought in the war between 1991-94 and continue to man the Line of Contact between Karabakh and Azerbaijan . Armenia does not recognize Nagorno-Karabakh as being legally part of Azerbaijan , arguing that because the region declared independence at the same time that Azerbaijan became an independent state, both of them are equally successor states of the Soviet Union

A Word

Azerbaijan and Armenia are still officially at war and their troops frequently fight skirmishes along a heavily mined front line. Killing of people and soldiers has been a routine feature in the region. Russia, the USA and France are mediators in the conflict. It is quite necessary Ban Ki Moon the Secretary General convenes a special session of UN exclusively at the earliest to debate on this crucial issue of independence by several nations and devises strategies to obtain independence and re-independence for the struggling nations without letting more blood flow. World leaders must shed their double-speak in supporting one nation while opposing another and help resolve the international crises so as to enable people across the borders live peacefully.

Abdul Ruff is an Indian analyst, researcher & commentator.