Wanting to Have Their Cake and Their Neighbor's Too: Azerbaijani attitudes towards Karabakh and Iranian Azerbaijan

Abstract

Azerbaijan's foreign policy agenda, even prior to independence in 1991, has been largely dominated by two main issues: how to regain the Armenian-occupied region of Nogorno-Karabakh, and what relationship the state should have with the millions of ethnic Azerbaijanis who live in the bordering provinces of Iran. Over the past decade, two schools of thought have emerged, which reflect not only two different approaches to these issues, but also two opposing notions of what constitutes the Azerbaijani nation.