Agence France Presse
May 21, 2010 Friday 5:15 PM GMT

EU won’t recognise Nagorny Karabakh elections: Ashton

brussels, May 21 2010

As far as the European Union is concerned "parliamentary elections"
planned in Azerbaijan’s disputed Nagorny Karabakh region have no basis
in law, the EU’s foreign affairs chief said Friday.

"The European Union does not recognise the constitutional and legal
framework within which the "parliamentary elections" in Nagorny
Karabakh will be held on Sunday, EU High Representative for foreign
and security affairs Catherine Ashton said in a statement.

"This event should not prejudice the peaceful settlement of the
Nagorny Karabakh conflict," she added.

Backed by Armenia, ethnic Armenian separatists seized control of
Nagorny Karabakh from Azerbaijan in the early 1990s in a war that
killed nearly 30,000 people and forced two million to flee their
homes.

Fifteen years after Armenia and Azerbaijan signed a ceasefire in their
conflict over the Nagorny Karabakh region, the enclave remains a
powderkeg in the strategically important South Caucasus.

Ashton will meet with Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian in Brussels
on Tuesday.

She stressed Europe’s "firm support" for work of the OSCE Minsk Group,
co-chaired by France, Russia and the United States, which was created
in 1992 to seek a negotiated resolution to the conflict between
Azerbaijan and Armenia over Nagorny Karabakh.

Ashton called on all parties involved "to redouble their efforts to
find a negotiated solution to the conflict," adding that the European
Union was ready to offer its own support to the process.