Exclusive interview: Armenian PM on Azerbaijani conflict

On Sunday, Azerbaijan began shelling Armenian positions in Nagorno-Karabakh — a disputed piece of territory in the Caucasus peopled primarily by the Armenians but owned, at least on paper, by Azerbaijan. In the 1920s, Soviet administrators, disregarding demography, had placed Nagorno-Karabakh inside Azerbaijan. In the run-up the USSR’s demise, the local Armenians voted overwhelmingly to secede from Azerbaijan in a referendum and proclaimed independence. Nobody recognised the result. And when the USSR collapsed, the place ended up inside the internationally recognised borders of Azerbaijan. A terrible war ensued. Armenia seized Nagorno-Karabakh and adjacent lands, Russia brokered a ceasefire, and an international forum called the Minsk Group was convened in 1992 to prod the two parties to settle their differences without spilling blood.

In the 28 years since, thousands of people have been killed — and hundreds of thousands displaced — in a series of outbreaks of hostilities. Nagorno-Karabakh has justly been called the ‘most dangerous unresolved conflict in wider Europe’.