| Azerbaijan 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, Georgia to the northwest, Armenia to the west, and Iran to the south. The Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhchivan is bordered by Armenia to the north and east, Iran to the south and west, and Turkey to the northwest. Nagorno-Karabakh, along with 7 other districts in Azerbaijan's southwest, have been controlled by Armenia 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 encompasses several islands in the Caspian Sea. Azerbaijan, a nation with an ethnic Azeri and Shi‘ite Muslim majority population, is a secular and unitary republic. The country has been a co-founder of GUAM and the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, and has been a member of the Commonwealth of Independent States since September 1993. 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.
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