Summary

Non-signatory Azerbaijan says it cannot accede to the Convention on Cluster Munitions until its dispute with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh and other occupied territories is resolved. Azerbaijan has participated in meetings of the convention, most recently in September 2021. It voted in favor of a key United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) resolution promoting the convention in December 2021.

Azerbaijan is not known to have produced or exported cluster munitions, but it has imported them and inherited a stockpile of cluster munitions from the Soviet Union. Azerbaijan last used cluster munitions in September–October 2020, during the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh.

Policy

The Republic of Azerbaijan has not acceded to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

Azerbaijan says it cannot join the convention until its conflict with Armenia is resolved, including the status of the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh.[1] Nagorno-Karabakh is claimed by Azerbaijan but under the control of a breakaway governing authority. In November 2020, Azerbaijan told States Parties that it was unable to consider accession due to “the obvious reasons arising from our assessment that the military posture of Armenia does not allow us [to join].”[2]

Azerbaijan participated in several meetings of the Oslo Process that created the Convention on Cluster Munitions, but did not attend the formal negotiations in Dublin in May 2008.[3]

Azerbaijan first participated in a meeting of the convention in September 2019. During the first part of the convention’s Second Review Conference, held virtually in November 2020, Azerbaijan denied using cluster munitions in Nagorno-Karabakh and condemned “in the strongest terms any use of cluster munitions by any actor under any circumstances.”[4] Azerbaijan also participated in the second part of the Second Review Conference, held in Geneva in September 2021.

In December 2021, Azerbaijan voted in favor of a key UNGA resolution that urged states not party to join the Convention on Cluster Munitions “as soon as possible.”[5] Azerbaijan has voted for the annual UNGA resolution promoting the convention since it was first introduced in 2015.

Azerbaijan is not party to the Mine Ban Treaty or the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW).

Production, transfer, and stockpiling

Azerbaijan is not known to have produced or exported cluster munitions, but it has imported them and inherited a stockpile from the Soviet Union.

According to Jane’s Information Group, Azerbaijan’s air force possesses RBK-250, RBK-250-275, and RBK-500 cluster bombs.[6] RBK-250 bombs with PTAB submunitions were observed among abandoned Soviet-era ammunition stockpiles near Saloğlu village in northwest Azerbaijan in 2005.[7]

Azerbaijan received at least 50 Extra surface-to-surface missiles and an unknown quantity of LAR-160 rockets from Israel for its LAR-160 multi-barrel rocket launchers in 2008–2009.[8] The missiles and rockets can have either a unitary warhead or a cluster munition variant that contains 104 M095 Dual-Purpose Improved Conventional Munition (DPICM) submunitions. Based on the use of the weapons, it appears that Azerbaijan acquired both types.[9]

Azerbaijan also possesses Grad 122mm and Smerch 300mm surface-to-surface rockets, but it is not known if these include cluster munition rockets.[10] Azerbaijan acquired 12 Smerch 300mm surface-to-surface rocket launchers from Ukraine in 2007–2008.[11]

Use

There is no evidence that Azerbaijan used cluster munitions in 2021 or the first half of 2022.

Azerbaijan last used cluster munitions in September–October 2020 during fighting over Nagorno-Karabakh.[12] There is clear evidence that Azerbaijan used LAR-160 cluster munition rockets in attacks in Stepanakert on 27 September, 3 October, and 4 October; in Hadrut on 3–4 October; and in Martakert on 4 October.[13]

Azerbaijan vigorously denied using cluster munitions in the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh.[14] In November 2020, Azerbaijani President Ilham Ailyev described the evidence as “fake news.”[15]

Armenian forces, or forces that it supports in Nagorno-Karabakh or in the seven occupied districts of Azerbaijan under Armenian control, fired cluster munitions into Azerbaijan during the 2020 conflict. Smerch cluster munition rockets containing 9N235 submunitions were used in Barda city in western Azerbaijan on 28 October, killing at least 21 and wounding at least 70 civilians.[16] There was evidence that Armenian or Nagorno-Karabakh forces supported by Armenia used cluster munitions in at least four other parts of Azerbaijan: in Gizilhajili on 3 October; in Tapgaragoyunlu on 23 October; in Kebirli on 24 October; and in Garayusifli on 27 October.[17]

There is evidence that Azerbaijan used cluster munitions in Nagorno-Karabakh in the first week of April 2016, amid fighting across the line of contact.[18] Within 10 days of the ceasefire agreement, remnants of LAR-160 rockets and approximately 200 unexploded M095 DPICM submunitions were cleared and destroyed near the villages of Mokhratagh and Nerkin Horatagh, close to the town of Martakert in northeast Nagorno-Karabakh.[19]

Armenia’s Ministry of Defense issued photographs on 6 April 2016 showing remnants of 300mm Smerch cluster munition rockets, which it alleged Azerbaijan fired into Nagorno-Karabakh.[20]

Azerbaijan and Armenia both denied using cluster munitions in the 2016 conflict and accused each other of using the weapon against civilians.[21]

Previously, RBK-series cluster bombs were used in Nagorno-Karabakh during the 1988–1994 conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan. HALO Trust deminers have since cleared unexploded PTAB-1M submunitions near Mugalny village.[22]

(See separate Monitor Ban Policy profile on Nagorno-Karabakh for more information.)