[7][8] Until the demise of Safavid Iran, Nakhichevan was under the administrative jurisdiction of the Erivan Province (also known as Chokhur-e Sa'd).

[11] Later that year, as Ottoman forces threatened the area during the same war, Shah Abbas ordered Maqsud Sultan to evacuate the entire population of the Nakhichevan region (including the Armenians of Julfa, who, in the following year, were transplanted to Isfahan, Qaraja Dag (Arasbaran) and Dezmar.

[12] Following the Treaty of Georgievsk in 1783 between the Russian Empire and the east Georgian kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti, Kalb-Ali tried to establish contact with Russia.

This action angered the Qajar king of Iran, Agha Mohammad Khan (r. 1789–1797), who as a result had Kalb-Ali seized and taken to Tehran in 1796, where he was blinded.

[16] In 1808, during the Russo-Persian War of 1804–1813, Russian forces under general Gudovich briefly occupied Nakhichevan, but as a result of the Treaty of Gulistan, it was returned to Persian control.

In 1827, during the Russo-Persian War of 1826–1828, Abbas Mirza appointed Ehsan Khan Kangarlu as commander of Abbasabad, a fortress of strategic importance for the defense of the Nakhichevan Khanate.

Ehsan Khan secretly contacted the Russian commander, General Paskevich, and opened the gates of the fortress to him on 22 July 1827.