PEOPLE OF NAGORNO KARABAKH ELECT NKR AND NOT RA PRESIDENT
By Aghavni Harutyunian, translated by L.H.
AZG Armenian Daily
07/02/2008
People in Baku don’t know it; they don’t know even the country’s
constitution.
Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry started its recurrent disinformation
campaign – maybe they are getting a preparatory training on our
presidential elections before Azerbaijani presidential elections.
Anyway, Azerbaijani political thinking is facing a crisis, confidently,
as they have no conception of some simple questions. Mainly,
Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry Press Service Department Chief Khazar
Ibrahim announced that the process of presidential elections in
Azerbaijan and Armenia "…brought to various violations of Azerbaijani
legislation and International Law connected with Nagorno Karabakh".
According to Ibrahim, it becomes clear that "…the Azerbaijani
citizens of the occupied territories of Armenia cannot participate
in Azerbaijani presidential elections".
Another violation of law, according to Ibrahim, is "…the
participation of Nagorno Karabakh people in RA presidential elections".
"Electoral districts are being formed in Nagorno Karabakh connected
with RA presidential elections. We don’t have its supervision
mechanisms", probably the wail was directed to international society.
First of all, we would like to underline that only RA citizens can
participate in RA presidential elections and Azerbaijani citizens, even
in case of strong desire and with the help of international society’s
"persuasions", cannot take part in Armenian election processes. At
the same time, they cannot participate in NKR elections, as only
Nagorno Karabakh citizens have right to participate in them.
Azerbaijanis cannot understand an elementary thing – Karabakh has no
connection with the Republic of Azerbaijan. Moreover, many of Karabakh
people have gained RA citizenship, and some of them even US citizenship
and the Azerbaijani approach is ridiculous, for example the hopes to
make US citizens participate in Ilham Aliev’s re-election process.
Besides, the same Ibrahim should think that if he really considers NKR
citizens as Azerbaijani, he will be concerned of the fact that every
election can be considered as illegal because of non-participation
of the half of the population.
We would like to quote several articles from Azerbaijani constitution
about citizenship. According to Azerbaijani constitution the documents
that confirm citizenship are birth certificate and Azerbaijani
passport. And as Karabakh people don’t have even one of the mentioned,
the talks about as if Karabakh people are Azerbaijani citizens are
worthless.
Moreover, Azerbaijani constitution article 52 defines who is
Azerbaijani citizen. And Nagorno Karabakh people cannot be placed in
that definition.
What about Armenian presidential elections and so-called participation
of Nagorno Karabakh people in it, we want to recall that NKR has its
own election processes, and elections are held there independent of
Armenian and Azerbaijani elections. And though Azerbaijan doesn’t
recognize those elections, they are de facto processes that regulate
Nagorno Karabakh’s life and development.
Participation of RA citizens (of Karabakh origin) in Armenian
presidential elections corresponds to International Law principles
and normatives. And all of them who have RA citizenship and election
franchise are part of that process even if Azerbaijan is against it.