R. Kocharyan put an end to the senseless dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh elections

PanARMENIAN.Net - Arkadi Ghukasyan, after he was elected the President of Nagorno-Karabakh for the first time, in answer to the question about his party belonging, said that like the whole nation he belongs to one party only. "We are the Party of Karabakh," said Ghukasyan in 1997. Likely the newly elect President Bako Sahakyan will say the same, in spite of the existence of several political parties in Karabakh, which in fact have one main thing in common; they all have the issue of recognition of Nagorno-Karabakh independence on the first place in all their programs.

It would still be all right if our neighbors didn't try to convince the world community and first of all its nation that the elections in Nagorno-Karabakh are not recognized by anyone at all and no one will ever be holding negotiations with the newly elect President. Baku maybe will no hold any negotiations, at least in the nearest future. By the way, this doesn't depend on Ilham Aliyev at all. The Speaker of the RA National Assembly Tigran Torosyan said, "If the international bodies do not recognize President of Nagorno-Karabakh, why do they talk to him at all?" This is indeed strange. The very Co-Chairs and not only, have hardly referred to Arkadi Ghukasyan, and at present to Bako Sahakyan otherwise than "Mr. President".

However this has nothing to do with Baku. The Azeri press seems not to have missed a single country, starting from Japan and ending with the USA, which "don't recognize" the Presidential elections in Nagorno-Karabakh. It should be mentioned that the above mentioned statement is mainly made by the Embassies of these countries in Baku, which is quite understandable. Yet, this is not all. The statements about not recognizing the elections were made by the Embassies of Australia, Canada, Japan and Israel in Ankara. Day.az writes in delight, that "the official Baku has enjoyed the great support from International Community for the first time over all these years of Karabakh Conflict. Before this the elections had been criticized by the USA, EU, NATO, OSCE, GUAM and other international organizations". True, the international community is now busy with the problems of Kosovo and Iran and doesn't seem to think about the elections in Nagorno-Karabakh. As for the statements made by the official representatives, they are quite natural. Nagorno-Karabakh is not a UN Member, and consequently it is considered to be an unrecognized state.

According to Paul Williams; the head of PILPG (Public International Law and Policy Group), which had organized the observation of the Presidential elections in Nagorno-Karabakh, people of Nagorno-Karabakh voted not for sake of some international bodies, but for themselves. "Their aim was to elect their President and they worked well. I am certain that in some weeks the Western diplomats will forget that they "denied the recognition" of Nagorno-Karabakh elections," said Williams. The Former Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Yugoslavia Vladimir Matich, who was one of the observers of the elections, mentioned that the presence of international observers proved the population of Karabakh that everything goes smoothly and that the elections of July 19 are one more step forward. "There is no article in the international law, which bans the population to elect a President", he said.

R. Kocharyan put an end to the senseless dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh elections. "The elections are held by the people of Nagorno-Karabakh to create their own and not Washington's, Brussels' or Moscow's life. And it doesn't matter that the elections are not recognized, the well-organized and democratic elections were a very important step towards the recognition of independence," announced Robert Kocharyan in Yerevan and advised not to pat any attention to these kind of empty talks.