[5] Later, during the perestroika era in the 1980s, there was a resurgence in the nationalist aspirations of Soviet Kurds, leading to the formation of the Yekbûn organization in 1989, which aimed to reestablish Kurdish autonomy.

Nonetheless, the 1991 collapse of the USSR coupled with Turkey's hostility to this plan ended all aspirations for an autonomous Kurdish state within the Soviet Union.

[14] The government of Russia also lent its support to the nascent republic;[15] in June 1992 Mustafayev traveled to Moscow to meet with the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

[17] Mustafayev also attended a conference of the PKK concerning the Kurdish struggle in Turkey in summer 1992; after this, he named Ishhan Aslan, a Kurd from Armenia, as the "military commander of this new republic".

[21] It was becoming increasingly clear that prolonging the republic's existence was no longer feasible, and it collapsed, marking the definitive end of Kurdish nationalism in the region.

His nephew Bahaddin Mustafayev told the media that his uncle "dedicated all his life for the freedom of the Kurdish people" and had supported the 2017 Kurdistan region independence referendum.

[22] In 2007, the government of Azerbaijan alleged that the PKK's leadership was moving its bases from Iraqi Kurdistan to the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, and that a Kurdish autonomous administration would be recreated in the Lachin and Kelbajar regions.