R. KOCHARYAN PUT AN END TO THE SENSELESS DISPUTE OVER NAGORNO-KARABAKH ELECTIONS

PanARMENIAN.Net
21.07.2007 GMT+04:00

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.

The third President of Nagorno-Karabakh has been elected. The elections
were fair and just, just as they have always been in Karabakh. The
personality and the program of the new President speak of the fact,
that Nagorno-Karabakh has no intention of turning off the road it has
taken. Sahakyan will hardly carry on a policy different from the one
carried by the previous powers.

/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.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress