More than a decade after the armed hostilities started, the conflict over the Nagorno-Karabakh region remains unsolved. Hundreds of thousands of people are still displaced and live in miserable conditions. Considerable parts of the territory of Azerbaijan are still occupied by Armenian forces. The military action, and the widespread ethnic hostilities which preceded it, led to large-scale ethnic expulsion and the creation of mono-ethnic areas which resemble the terrible concept of ethnic cleansing. Separatist forces are still in control of the Nagorno-Karabakh region.

The current conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan began in 1988, when the ethnic Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh unilaterally declared their independence from Azerbaijan with the intent of uniting with the Republic of Armenia. At that time, ethnic Armenians comprised about 65 percent of the by Armenia, which has had territorial claims against Azerbaijan as part of its desire to create a Greater Armenia by expanding its territory.

A series of Armenian offensives, beginning in 1992 and backed by Russian population of Nagorno-Karabakh. This push by the ethnic Karabakh Armenians to secede from Azerbaijan was instigated arms, resulted in the Armenian occupation of almost 20 percent of Azerbaijan's territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven other districts.

In February 1992, most day-to-day four years after the events, the ethnic Armenian forces attacked the only airport in Nagorno-Karabakh, in Khojali-to the North of the local capital. At the time, the population of Khojali was 7,000. The taking of Khojali, which left some 150 defenders of the airport dead, was followed by unprecedented brutalities against the civilian population. In one day, 613 unarmed people were reportedly massacred, and close to 1,300 were captured - many of them while trying to flee through an alleged humanitarian corridor.

The Khojali massacre sparked an exodus of Azerbaijanis and precipitated a political crisis in Baku. Five years later, in 1997, President Heydar Aliyev issued a Decree referring to the tragedy as the "Khojali genocide".

In May 1992, Armenian forces overtook Shusha (or Shushi, in Armenian) and the Lachin district of Azerbaijan, establishing a link between Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia proper-the so-called "Lachin corridor".

In June 1992, the Azerbaijani Popular Front (APF) Chairman, Ebulfez Elcibey, won the presidential election. Born in Nagorno-Karabakh, a former dissident having spent time in Soviet prisons, Mr. Elcibey became a prominent nationalist. Under his presidency, Azerbaijan launched a fresh military offensive, which eventually became unsuccessful. In June 1993, the APF was ousted from power by the forces of rebel army colonel Suret Gusseinov. Mr. Heydar Aliyev replaced Elcibey.
By October 1993, ethnic Armenian forces succeeded in occupying almost all of Nagorno-Karabakh, as well as large areas in south-western Azerbaijan. Hundreds of thousands of refugees fled to other parts of Azerbaijan.

In May 1994, Azerbaijan, Nagorno-Karabakh, and Armenia, with the mediation of Russia, Kyrgyzstan, and the CIS Inter-Parliamentary Assembly signed the Bishkek Protocol, and, a few days later, the 1994 Moscow cease-fire, which holds to this day.

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict left an estimated 30,000 dead and twice as many wounded combatants and civilians. Over one million people, some 800,000 of them Azerbaijanis, have fled their homes to live in refugee tents, railway carriages, and mud brick homes.

The efforts by international organizations including the UN and OSCE to negotiate the conflict, have proved futile thus far. The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is the longest-running one in the former Soviet Union. It is a strong barrier to economic development and democratic reform for the whole region. Hundreds of thousands of broken lives will take at least a generation to heal.

Mehriban Aliyeva