Tension between the two sides has been exacerbated by continuing disagreement of the nature of a road that would connect the two parts of Azerbaijan through Armenian territory.
The U.S. embassy’s decision not to visit Shusha followed soon after its reappointment of a representative to the Minsk Group, a body Baku has declared “dead.”
But just as Azerbaijani troops were entering the territory, however, it emerged that the new road that was the purported reason for the handover would not be ready for another week.
In 2020, Azerbaijan won back many of the water resources it had lost to Armenians in the 1990s. But the biggest source still eludes it, and farmers are still struggling.
A series of ceasefire violations has led to an unprecedented level of criticism, even as the Armenians of Karabakh still see the peacekeepers as their main guarantor of security.
Baku has been reforming its armed forces with a new education system, new weaponry, and a big increase in special forces units. And it is all being modeled after Turkey’s military.