Armenia and Azerbaijan fought a bloody war in the early 1990s over the disputed territory of Nagorno Karabakh. An autonomous oblast in the former Soviet Republic of Azerbaijan, Karabakh's ethnic Armenian majority called for unification with Armenia as the USSR collapsed at the end of the 1980s ushering in years of ethnic strife and conflict. Around 25,000 were killed and a million forced to flee their homes. Since a 1994 ceasefire agreement, however, lasting peace remains elusive.

This project, aiming to encourage and facilitate communication and cooperation between Armenians and Azerbaijanis, was created by Onnik Krikorian, a journalist, photojournalist and blogger from the United Kingdom based in Yerevan, Armenia, for the past 12 years. He first visited the disputed territory of Nagorno Karabakh as a reporter in 1994 and assisted Thomas de Waal in the research for .

In addition to writing and photographing for the traditional media, as well as working with outlets such as the BBC, Al Jazeera English, National Geographic and The Wall Street Journal, he has been blogging since 2005 and is the Caucasus regional editor for Global Voices Online. He also posts for the London-based Frontline Club while writing on politics, conflict, human rights and new media in the South Caucasus for Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso as well as many other publications..

He can be followed on Twitter at .

Aygun Janmammadova is a blogger from Azerbaijan. She is also a Global Voices author and a member of the Global Voices Russian Lingua team. Her academic background is in International Law and Peaceful Resolution of International Disputes and had been an Action Partner in Peace and Conflict as a part of the project run by Oxfam Australia. Apart from working as a lawyer, she is also involved in voluntary activities and projects in orphanages in Azerbaijan.

Marine Ejuryan holds a MA in International Relations from Yerevan State University and currently studies EU Internatioanl Relations and Diplomacy at the College of Europe in Belgium. She is an activist with extensive experience of cross-border peaceuilding and conflict resolution projects. Her research interests include peace studies, regional developments, with a focus on Turkish-Armenian and Armenian-Azerbaijani relations.

Khanim Javadova is an Azerbaijani journalist working on a personal project on minorities in Georgia while also studying at the GIPA School of Journalism and Media Management. Before GIPA she worked for Khazar TV in Baku in “CNF” production as a reporter. Her bachelor degree is also in journalism at Baku State University. She is particularly interested in working with minorities and providing them with the opportunity to have their voices heard by the larger society.

Her personal blog is here and she can be followed on Twitter at

Also special thanks for occasional contributions from , Scary Azeri, Ianyan, Global Chaos, Unzipped, Zamira Abbasova, Marianna Karapetyan and Sasun Khachatryan. Anyone interested in also submitting materials or for further information please contact this site through the email link at the top of the page.

Vusala Alibalyi is a 23-year-old journalist who has four years experience with the media in Azerbaijan. She started her journalistic work at the “Sharg” newspaper in 2005 and has been working at Radio Liberty as a reporter in the social field and as a host in a youth program since 2006.

After graduating from the faculty of journalism at Baku State University in 2008, she has been studying at the GIPA School of Journalism and Media Managment in Tbilisi, Georgia. She has won two awards for her reporting -- in 2006 for a story on freedom of information and in 2008 for one on Maternity Welfare Clinics.

Her personal blog is here and she can be followed on Twitter at

Dodi Kharkheli, aka Dodie Kissie or Dodka, is a Georgian blogger and Internet activist who has been blogging for five years. She is also the founder of the satirical “misinformation” blog in Georgia, Ni2 News, and involved in the creation of the first Georgian blog catalogue. She is also a consultant and trainer on new and social media as well as online marketing.

Her personal blog is here and she can be followed on Twitter at

Arzu Geybullayeva joined ESI in October 2007 as an analyst working in and on Azerbaijan. She holds a BA degree in International Relations from Bilkent University in Ankara and an MSc degree in Global Politics from London School of Economics and Political Science. Prior to joining ESI, Arzu was working as a researcher at Oxford Business Group where she has managed several projects in Africa and Asia and was part of a team undertaking an extensive market survey of Libya.

Arzu's areas of interest include conflict resolution and analysis, peace studies, sustainable development and gender studies. She writes about the same on her own blog.

She can be followed on Twitter at