Further to last week's discussion at The Blind Spot: "Spot Markets Live Transcript, 17/10/23 (Azerbaijan and Armenia, oil, meme stocks)".
From Energy Intelligence, October 16:
In a remote corner of southern Armenia, along a 40-mile border with Iran, is a patch of land largely unknown to the rest of the world — the Syunik/Zangezur region. From a resource perspective, it offers little. But from a geopolitical perspective, it could become the trigger for a conflict between Turkey and Iran that would resonate across global energy markets. Ostensibly the byproduct of a centuries-old territorial dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan, the Syunik/Zangezur region — currently under Armenian control — has become attractive to both Azerbaijan and Turkey for economic purposes. Iran, however, has indicated that any effort by Azerbaijan to take over the region would trigger an Iranian military response, a conflict that would likely draw in Azerbaijan’s ally, Turkey.
The name of the Syunik/Zangezur region in itself reflects controversy that dates back to the Russian Empire and its collapse in 1917 — which gave birth to the then briefly independent republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan. Known by its Armenian name, Syunik, since antiquity, Russian authorities renamed the territory Zangezur in the 19th century, reflecting the Azeri majority population at the time. Britain — which intervened in the region at the end of World War I — sustained that practice when it approved Azerbaijan’s administration of the territory. Armenian forces, however, seized control of the Zangezur region in November 1919, and when Soviet control was asserted over both Azerbaijan and Armenia in 1920, the region was formally transferred to Armenian sovereignty as the Syunik Province....
....MUCH MORE
