AZERBAIJAN BREAKAWAY REGION ELECTS NEW PRESIDENT
Voice of America
July 20 2007
The former security chief in Azerbaijan’s breakaway region of
Nagorno-Karabakh has won the presidential election in the majority
Armenian enclave.
Bako Sahakian was declared the winner Friday, with 85 percent of
the vote in Thursday’s balloting. He easily defeated his closest
rival, Deputy Foreign Minister Masis Maylian, and three others in
the five-person race.
Azerbaijan has denounced the election as illegal. The predominantly
Armenian-inhabited area declared independence in 1988, but has no
international recognition. The declaration triggered a six-year
conflict that killed 35,000 people.
All five candidates support independence for the region. Analysts
say Nagorno-Karabakh views international deliberations on Serbia’s
breakaway Kosovo province as a precedent for its own status.
Efforts to reach a final settlement on the future of Nagorno-Karabakh
have so far been unsuccessful.