Azerbaijan declared independence.
Azerbaijan . The modern Republic of Azerbaijan proclaimed its independence on 30 August 1991 , prior to the official dissolution of the USSR in December 1991 . The region and seven adjacent districts outside it became de facto independent with the end of the Nagorno-Karabakh War in 1994 . A member of the United Nations since 1992 after its independence , Azerbaijan was elected to membership in the newly established Human Rights Council by the United Nations General Assembly on 9 May 2006 . Azerbaijan Democratic Republic . The name of `` Azerbaijan '' which the leading Musavat party adopted , for political reasons , was , prior to the establishment of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic in 1918 , exclusively used to identify the adjacent region of contemporary northwestern Iran .