Karabakh parliamentary elections illegal – Azerbaijan
By Sevindzh Abdullayeva, Viktor Shulman

ITAR-TASS News Agency
June 14, 2005 Tuesday 2:38 PM Eastern Time

BAKU, June 14 — The June 19 ‘parliamentary elections’ in
Nagorno-Karabakh “to be held against the background of an occupation of
territories and ethnic cleansing contradict the norms and principles
of the international law and the constitution of Azerbaijan and are
illegal,” says a Tuesday statement by the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry.

This action of the Armenian side “does not correspond to the spirit
of the Karabakh settlement negotiations, which have recently given
hope for positive tendencies,” the ministry said. “It is impossible
to achieve lasting peace without normalization, peaceful co-existence
and cooperation between the Azerbaijani and Armenian communities
in the Nagorno-Karabakh region of the Azerbaijani Republic,” the
ministry said.

Azerbaijan supports the international appeals for direct contacts
between the communities and comprehensive confidence-building measures
aimed at the prevention of feud and the achievement of stability and
mutual understanding, the ministry said.

“The dialog between the communities will promote relations between
Karabakh Armenians and Azerbaijanis returning to places of their
permanent residence and create prerequisites for the involvement of
all strata of the population into the legal, peaceful and democratic
process, including the establishment of legitimate regional authorities
of any level,” the ministry said.