13 Jan in 8:00 The Jamestown Foundation It is worth recalling that 2019 was a year marked by domestic politics, reforms and broad caution about the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Experts and observers on all sides avoided rushing to quick judgements about whether the so-called Velvet Revolution that overtook Armenia in 2018 would eventually lead to a peaceful resolution in Karabakh (see EDM, January 27, 2020). But those trends quickly started to reverse at the start of last year, The Jamestown Foundation reports in its article While patiently waiting for the domestic dynamics of Armenian politics to reach their logical conclusion and for Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian to finally clarify his position on Karabakh, the Azerbaijani leadership began 2020 by continuing to concentrate on affairs at home. On February 9, 2020, Azerbaijan held snap elections after the national parliament was dissolved in December 2019. The election campaign notably coincided with the earliest outbreaks of COVID-19 worldwide. The government commenced evaluating the possible threats and countermeasures to the growing health crisis even as early as January of 2020 (Nk.gov.az, January 28, 2020). And three weeks after the elections, on February 27, the authorities established an Operational Headquarters under the Cabinet of Ministers to coordinate Azerbaijan’s various state institutions and agencies in combating the novel coronavirus; Prime Minister Ali Asadov has been heading this body ever since (see EDM, April 16, 2020). Early adopted measures, such as launching modular hospitals (Azertag.az, June 9, 2020), enabled Azerbaijan to control the pace of the spread of the coronavirus enough so as not to overwhelm the national healthcare system—even during active phases of military operations later in the year. At the same time, the government attempted to continue the pace of reforms launched in 2019. New faces, schooled in the West, were brought in to the highest positions in the government, including Emin Amrullayev, a graduate of Columbia University, who was appointed minister of education on July 27, 2020 (Oxu.az, July, 27, 2020).