DNA SPECIAL REPORT At the end of 1987, the Soviet Socialist Republic of Armenia openly laid claim to the territory of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO) of the Soviet Socialist Republic of Azerbaijan. Contrary to the Constitution of the USSR, which guaranteed the territorial integrity and inviolability of borders of the Union Republics, both the Armenian SSR and members of the Armenian community of the NKAO adopted a number of decisions to institute the process of unilateral secession of the autonomous region from Azerbaijan.