Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Russia ratified the Caspian seabed delimitation treaties based on equidistance, while Iran continues to insist on a one-fifth slice of the sea, the dispute over the break-away Nagorno-Karabakh region and the Armenian military occupation of surrounding lands in Azerbaijan remains the primary focus of regional instability; residents have evacuated the former Soviet-era small ethnic enclaves in Armenia and Azerbaijan; local border forces struggle to control the illegal transit of goods and people across the porous, undemarcated Armenian, Azerbaijani, and Georgian borders; bilateral talks continue with Turkmenistan on dividing the seabed and contested oilfields in the middle of the Caspian
Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons
IDPs: 600,000 (conflict with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh) (2013)
Stateless persons: 3,585 (2012)
Trafficking in Persons
Illicit Drugs
limited illicit cultivation of cannabis and opium poppy, mostly for CIS consumption, small government eradication program; transit point for Southwest Asian opiates bound for Russia and to a lesser extent the rest of Europe
