Nagorno-Karabakh the heartland

This week European football starts in earnest with groups stages, the qualifiers over.  Sadly, this year Sheriff Tiraspol did not make it and so won't have a chance against England's two remaining representatives in the Europa League.  FK Qarabağ, however, did make it.  They have a gala draw, being pitted in the same group as Internazionale of Milan.  St Etienne (a faded giant) and Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk (struggling with the upheaval in the Ukraine) are not as daunting and it would not be impossible for them to reach the knockout stages. There could they face off against English opposition (by the luck of the draw) but only if they play Tottenham Hotspur, as Sheriff did in last season's group stage match, would there even be a chance off myself going to see them (Merseyside - with Everton - for a whim is out of the question).  Unlike Sheriff, they don't base themselves in the breakaway territory of Nagorno-Karabakh (note the different spelling), which I feel diminishes their exotic cachet.
It's been a important month for this Armenian enclave.  The president of Azerbaijan did some sabre-rattling, threatening to recommence live hostilities, ahead of a tripartite presidential meeting in Sochi (maybe in the same suites that had been initially reserved for the G8 meeting that never occurred) between Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan.  The summit passed off without substantial changes, except to reaffirm that Moscow still has political clout in the Caucasus.  Across the Atlantic and the Rockies, at the end of August the Californian State Senate passed a resolution recognising the independence of Nagorno-Karabakh, after pressure from the powerful Armenian-American lobby.  Like similar decisions in the past from state legislatures such as Maine, Rhode Island and Louisiana, it has no bearing on US Federal policy.  Even if not internationally recognised, the authorities in the 'capital' of Stepanakert have been welcoming displaced minorities from Iraq such as Yazidi Kurds (admittedly in small numbers) to settle.  Humanitarian in outlook, it also works to enhance the diplomatic prestige and international awareness of Nagorno-Karabakh; there is also a historical hinterland to such a move - in early Soviet times, the region was called Red Kurdistan, so in a way Stepanakert is 'welcoming home' brothers and sisters.  The trouble is that some of the proposed settlements are outside the defined boundary of the enclave, on occupied Azerbaijani land.  Already, 35 Armenian families from Syria (about 130 people in total) are in violation of international law.
In addition to the deaths, at the start of September, the International Committee of the Red Cross issued a press release stating that there are still more 4,500 people registered as missing from the conflict that raged in the dying embers of the Soviet Union.  It is a running sore in Azerbaijan and though some sort of federal arrangement probably is the way forward, whether the authorities in Armenia could ever consent to divest themselves of the occupied land corridor between themselves and their ethnic kin in the breakaway republic is moot.  Peter Lyukimson, who wrote Nagorno-Karabakh: chronicles of a conflict.  Notes of a Jew from Baku declared that, "For every Azerbaijani, Karabakh today is the same as Jerusalem for the Jews, the Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius and Yasnaya Polyana for Russians, Versailles and the Bois de Boulogne for the French..."  Similarly, after a century of persecution, many Armenians still feel themselves to be aggrieved, with the current international borders confining Yerevan's dominion to just 10% of historical Armenia at its greatest extent.
In the USA, Section 907 (a Federal policy) is still in force.  It defines Azerbaijan as the aggressor in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.  This means despite being a co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group, Washington DC is not entirely impartial, though a desire to maintain equitable relations with resource-rich Baku was enabled by George W Bush's War on Terrorism, supplying arms to the regime to combat.  Moscow's balancing act has a military alliance with Armenia complemented by heavier arms transfers to Azerbaijan.  France, the third of the three co-chairs, seems to prefer to forget the conflict like the rest of the world.  The disastrous polls for President François Hollande means he will probably be always viewed as a failure but he could be Jimmy Carter-like and invest the capital of his office with finding a modus vivendi in the frozen conflict - I'm sure a majority of Armenians in France (where the last King of Armenia is buried - in St Denis, Paris) are already disillusioned with his leadership for matters pertaining directly to France.  Only with a resolution can FK Qarabağ return 'home' from their current self-imposed exile on the shores of the Caspian Sea but the prospect appears as distant as ever.