PanARMENIAN.Net

If European officials don’t want to encourage democracy in NKR, let
them not pose obstacles at least

04.07.2007 13:59 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ `It arouses regret that
representatives of the Council of Europe, the
organization, which is called to protect and propagate
the ideals and principles of pluralistic democracy,
human rights and law supremacy by means of integration
processes, condemns holding of elections,’ Nagorno
Karabakh Foreign Minister Georgy Petrosian said when
commenting on Vuk Jeremic’s statement on forthcoming
presidential elections in the NKR. `They cast doubt on
the election institute itself as an important element
of democracy, which contradicts the CoE Charter. If
the European officials don’t want to contribute to the
democratic processes in the NKR then we have the right
to expect that they, at least, won’t impede
strengthening of democratic institutes in our
republic. We are deeply convinced that democratization
is an important precondition for the Karabakh conflict
settlement, since democracy presupposes creation of
mechanisms, which allow solving any conflict
exclusively in a peaceful way. This is the goal of the
Nagorno Karabakh Republic. It would be natural if
representatives of various European structures shared
this aspiration, the NKR MFA press office reports.

Recently, President of the CoE Committee of Ministers,
Foreign Minister of Serbia Vuk Jeremic has stated that
the upcoming elections in the NKR can’t promote the
conflict settlement and will even impede the
negotiation process.