Azerbaijan (
IPA
:
/ˌæzəbaɪˈʤɑːn/
(UK),
/ˌɑzɚbaɪˈʤɑːn/
(US);
Azerbaijani
:
Azərbaycan
), officially the Republic of Azerbaijan (
Azerbaijani
:
Azərbaycan Respublikası
), is the largest and most populous country in the South
Caucasus
region of
Eurasia
. Located at the crossroads of
Eastern Europe
and
Western Asia
, it is bounded by the
Caspian Sea
to the east,
Russia
to the north,
Georgia
to the northwest,
Armenia
to the west, and
Iran
to the south. The Azerbaijani
exclave
of
Nakhchivan
is bordered by Armenia to the north and east, Iran to the south and west, and
Turkey
to the northwest.
Nagorno-Karabakh
, along with other districts in Azerbaijan's southwest, have been controlled by Armenia since the end of the
Nagorno-Karabakh War
in .
Four
United Nations Security Council
Resolutions (, , , and ) called for "the withdrawal of occupying forces from occupied areas of the Azerbaijani Republic"
The country's territory also encompasses several islands in the Caspian Sea. Azerbaijan, a nation with an
ethnic Azeri
and
Shi‘ite Muslim
majority population,
is a
secular
and
unitary
republic. The country has been a co-founder of
GUAM
and the
Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons
, and has been a member of the
Commonwealth of Independent States
since September .
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. |