Quote Originally Posted by Montmorency View Post
Why has Azerbaijan escalated the conflict now (and declaring war and proclaiming absolute aggressive intent to irredentism is a pretty big escalation), and what are its foreign policy tradeoffs?
To be honest, Karabakh is internationally recognized as Azerbaijani territory, so technically it's the Armenians that are following irredentism, here. Of course, the majority of the population was Armenian even before the conquest, but that doesn't legitimise the Armenian position, in my opinion.

Fun fact: Every Greek can understand the etymology of Karabakh (Black Garden), because both components are being used on our daily language (although not in formal texts, because anything not sounding ancient Greek bad). That's perhaps a nice testament to our common heritage and of the fact that there are not so many things separating different nationalities. Hopefully Azeris and Armenians will also realise that, before they start massacring each other again.