Artsakh Declared Independence Before Azerbaijan Did

In this exchange the hosts walk through a piece of legal history that rarely gets airtime. Asbed explains that in October 1991 Azerbaijan’s parliament approved a constitutional act on state independence and only held a popular referendum on December 29 of that year. Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh), by contrast, had already followed every Soviet constitutional step, from proclamation to referendum, by December 10, becoming the Republic of Nagorno Karabakh before Azerbaijan even completed its own independence process.

Hovik reinforces the point that this happened before the breakup of the Soviet Union and in accordance with the laws in force at the time. Asbed frames it as a true expression of self-determination under both Soviet and international law. The two note that even Azerbaijan understood the strength of this legal foundation, pointing to Aliyev’s later move to abolish the autonomous status of Nakhijevan, an act they read as an attempt to foreclose any similar right to secede under proper procedure.

The moment matters because the legal origins of Artsakh’s independence are central to how Armenians remember and defend that history, especially after the region was ethnically cleansed of its more than 150,000 Armenian inhabitants in September 2023. As the wider South Caucasus story keeps moving, this clip captures a concise, fact-based case that Artsakh’s claim rested on law and procedure, not improvisation. It is the kind of clear, self-contained argument that travels well and gives viewers a piece of history they can cite when the subject comes up.