Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan (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, Turkey to the west, Georgia to the northwest, Armenia to the west, and Iran to the south. The Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic (an exclave of Azerbaijan) borders Armenia to the north and east, Iran to the south and west, and Turkey to the northwest. The Nagorno-Karabakh region along with 7 other districts in Azerbaijan's southwest have been controlled by Armenian separatists since the end of the Nagorno-Karabakh War in 1994. Four United Nations Security Council Resolutions (822, 853, 874, and 884) called for "the withdrawal of occupying forces from occupied areas of the Azerbaijani Republic". The country's territory also embraces several islands in the Caspian Sea with the total area of over thirty square kilometers.

Azerbaijan is a democratic, secular and unitary republic. The country has been a co-founder of the Commonwealth of Independent States, GUAM and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. 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.