In 2017, Gabbard was blacklisted by Azerbaijan for taking part in a visit to Armenia and a disputed, breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh, which is populated and governed by ethnic Armenians. In October 2020, she accused Turkey, a NATO ally, of encouraging and inciting the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh, and co-signed a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that read: "We write to express our deep concern with Azerbaijan's renewed aggression against Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh) and the rising possibility of a wider conflict with Armenia." Gabbard stated that the United States "must urge Azerbaijan to immediately end their attacks, and Turkey to cease its involvement both directly through the use of its armed forces, and indirectly by sending Al-Qaeda associated proxies to wipe out Nagorno-Karabakh's Armenian population—a tactic Turkey used against Syrian Kurds." Gabbard has called on the U.S. Senate and President Donald Trump to officially recognize the mass killings of Armenians in 1915 as a genocide.