PRO-REGIME PARTIES LEAD VOTE IN REBEL KARABAKH

Agence France Presse
May 24, 2010 Monday 2:00 PM GMT

Two parties close to the separatist leadership of Nagorny Karabakh,
a rebel region of Azerbaijan, have come out ahead in parliamentary
elections, according to preliminary results on Monday.

Azerbaijan denounced the election in the rebel region, which has been
controlled by ethnic Armenians since it broke free of Baku’s control
after a fierce war in the early 1990s that killed 30,000 people.

Armenia and Azerbaijan remain officially at war over Karabakh, and
the dispute is a major source of tension in the South Caucasus region
wedged between Iran, Russia and Turkey.

No country — not even Armenia — officially recognises Karabakh as
an independent state.

All of the parties that took part in Sunday’s election oppose
reunification with Azerbaijan.

“With more than half the ballots counted, Prime Minister Ara
Harutiunian’s Free Fatherland party was winning with 46.4 percent and
the Democratic Party of Artsakh with 28.6 percent,” Mikael Hajian,
a spokesman for Karabakh’s central elections commission, told AFP.

Two other parties running for the 33 seats in the region’s tiny
legislature, Dashnaktsutyun and the Communists, got 20.2 and 4.8
percent, respectively. The parties need to clear a 6 percent threshold
to enter parliament.

Armenian Foreign Minister Edvard Nalbandian said in a statement that
the vote was further proof of Karabakh’s “determination to live in
freedom and independence”.

Azerbaijan, which has vowed to return Karabakh under its control,
called the elections illegitimate and pointed out that ethnic Azeris
forced to flee the region had not participated in the vote.

“The elections cannot be considered legitimate until an agreement on
Karabakh’s status is reached between Armenia and Azerbaijan and…

until Karabakh’s Azeri community is given the possibility of
participating in the vote,” Ali Gasanov, a senior official in the
Azerbaijani presidency, told journalists.

More than one million people on both sides were forced to flee their
homes as a result of the Karabakh conflict, which ended with a truce
in 1994 though tensions remain and fatal shootings along the ceasefire
line are common.

EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton said last week that the
European Union did not recognise the election in Karabakh and called
for a negotiated end to the long-running conflict.

From: A. Papazian