AZERBAIJAN REJECTS NAGORNO-KARABAKH REFERENDUM

Source: Xinhua
People’s Daily Online, China
Dec 12 2006

Azerbaijan refused on Monday to recognize the results of a vote in
its breakaway region of Nagorno- Karabakh on its first constitution,
rejecting Sunday’s referendum as "a farce."

Nagorno-Karabakh is a region in Azerbaijan populated mostly by
ethnic Armenians. Armed conflict broke out in the early 1990s
between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the region’s status after it
declared independence, which was not recognized by the international
community. A Russian-brokered ceasefire deal ended the fighting in
1994 but the dispute remains unsolved.

Preliminary results from the region’s election commission on Monday
showed 98.6 percent of the voters approved the region’s constitution.

The region had 90,000 voters and turnout stood at 87 percent.

"This referendum is a farce and it is not worth wasting time on it,"
Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mamedyarov was quoted by the RIA
Novosti news agency as saying.

The European Union and other international organizations, including
the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, said they
would not recognize the referendum, Mamedyarov said.