On 5 May, the Bishkek Protocol was signed by the heads of the parliaments of Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. The Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, backed by Armenia, established de facto control of these lands. The war ended in an Armenian victory with the signing of a ceasefire agreement in May 1994 by representatives of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. Despite Ter-Petrosyan's efforts to establish normal relations with Turkey, which included arranging for the transport of wheat to Armenia from the EU through Turkish territory and attending the funeral of Turkish president Turgut Özal in Ankara, the capture of Kalbajar district by Armenian forces in April 1993 significantly worsened relations with Turkey. That month Turkey closed its border with Armenia. As on other occasions, Vazgen Manukyan. deliberately presented only a small part of the Kalbajar operation to Ter-Petrosyan. The Armenian-Turkish border remains closed to this day and the two countries have no diplomatic relations. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union took place as a result and against the backdrop of general economic stagnation, even regression. As the Gosplan, which had set up production chains to cross SSR lines, broke down, the inter-republic economic connections were also disrupted, leading to an even more serious breakdown of the post-Soviet economies. Armenia suffered severe economic hardship in the first years following independence, It is difficult to overstate the calamity that faced Armenia in 1991-93. The country, land-locked and with few natural resources, was beginning the transition from a centrally-planned to a market economy, with very limited institutional capacity. As a result of the conflict raging with Azerbaijan over Nagorno Karabakh (NK), an ethnic Armenian enclave inside Azerbaijan, refugees from Azerbaijan was streaming into Armenia. At the same time, Azerbaijan imposed a trade embargo, shutting off most supplies of energy and other critical goods (the main natural gas pipelines which supplied Armenia through Azerbaijan were closed) due to the full-scale war. The border with Turkey, which was sympathetic to Azerbaijan, was closed, and the main routes into the country to the north through Georgia were subject to frequent interdiction and the route through Georgia was frequently closed due to civil unrest there. As Armenia was deeply integrated with the Soviet economy and had the highest level of imports of any Soviet republic. Armenia's GDP declined drastically from 1991 to 1993 because of these factors, and fuel shortages were ubiquitous․ The worst years of the energy