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Azerbaijan's breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh enclave holds parliamentary
elections
Monday, June 20, 2005
FOREIGN
ANKARA - TDN with wire dispatches
The Armenian-controlled enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh held parliamentary
elections on Sunday, with the main pro-government party and an
opposition group expected to win the majority of seats.
Candidates and parties are contesting all 33 seats in the legislature
of the region, which has been in the hands of ethnic Armenians since a
six-year war against Azerbaijani forces ended with a 1994
cease-fire. The war killed some 30,000 people and drove a million from
their homes.
No political settlement has been reached despite international efforts
to nudge the governments of Armenia and Azerbaijan toward a resolution
and the threat of a new armed conflict between the former Soviet
republics in the Caucasus Mountains persists.
Observers believe the Democratic Party of Artsakh, which supports the
government of President Arkady Gukasian, and the
Dashnaktsutyun-Movement 88 bloc have the best chances of gaining seats
in the in the election. Artsakh is the Armenian name for
Nagorno-Karabakh.
Pro-presidential forces currently hold about half the parliamentary
seats and have usually been able to push their initiatives through
with support from independent lawmakers. Dashnaktsutyun holds about a
dozen seats in the current Parliament.
The opposition bloc says Nagorno-Karabakh's leadership is not tough
enough in asserting its self-proclaimed independence and claims it is
too willing to consider ceding Azerbaijani territory it controls
outside the borders of the enclave.
Dashnaktsutyun says the leadership of Nagorno-Karabakh must not
consider ceding control of any territory unless Azerbaijan recognizes
the enclave's independence, something Azerbaijan has said it will not
do.
Of the 33 seats in Parliament, 22 are to go to the winners of races in
individual electoral districts. The other 11 are to be filled through
voting by party, with parties allocating seats in proportion to the
number of votes they receive.
Turkey denounces polls in Nagorno-Karabakh:
Turkey said Friday that upcoming parliamentary polls in
Nagorno-Karabakh, a breakaway enclave claimed both by its close ally
Azerbaijan and its arch-foe Armenia, were illegitimate and contrary to
international peace efforts in the region.
"Turkey believes that such unilateral initiatives ... will not help
efforts for a peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh problem and
considers these elections to be illegitimate," Foreign Ministry
spokesman Namık Tan said in a statement.
Armenia is the only country to recognize Nagorno-Karabakh as an
independent state.
Turkey is one of Azerbaijan's staunchest allies, with which it also
has close ethnic bonds. It has refused to establish formal diplomatic
ties with Armenia out of solidarity with Azerbaijan in the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict but also because of Armenia's campaign to
have the World War I-era killings of Armenians under Ottoman Empire
rule internationally recognized as genocide.
elections
Monday, June 20, 2005
FOREIGN
ANKARA - TDN with wire dispatches
The Armenian-controlled enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh held parliamentary
elections on Sunday, with the main pro-government party and an
opposition group expected to win the majority of seats.
Candidates and parties are contesting all 33 seats in the legislature
of the region, which has been in the hands of ethnic Armenians since a
six-year war against Azerbaijani forces ended with a 1994
cease-fire. The war killed some 30,000 people and drove a million from
their homes.
No political settlement has been reached despite international efforts
to nudge the governments of Armenia and Azerbaijan toward a resolution
and the threat of a new armed conflict between the former Soviet
republics in the Caucasus Mountains persists.
Observers believe the Democratic Party of Artsakh, which supports the
government of President Arkady Gukasian, and the
Dashnaktsutyun-Movement 88 bloc have the best chances of gaining seats
in the in the election. Artsakh is the Armenian name for
Nagorno-Karabakh.
Pro-presidential forces currently hold about half the parliamentary
seats and have usually been able to push their initiatives through
with support from independent lawmakers. Dashnaktsutyun holds about a
dozen seats in the current Parliament.
The opposition bloc says Nagorno-Karabakh's leadership is not tough
enough in asserting its self-proclaimed independence and claims it is
too willing to consider ceding Azerbaijani territory it controls
outside the borders of the enclave.
Dashnaktsutyun says the leadership of Nagorno-Karabakh must not
consider ceding control of any territory unless Azerbaijan recognizes
the enclave's independence, something Azerbaijan has said it will not
do.
Of the 33 seats in Parliament, 22 are to go to the winners of races in
individual electoral districts. The other 11 are to be filled through
voting by party, with parties allocating seats in proportion to the
number of votes they receive.
Turkey denounces polls in Nagorno-Karabakh:
Turkey said Friday that upcoming parliamentary polls in
Nagorno-Karabakh, a breakaway enclave claimed both by its close ally
Azerbaijan and its arch-foe Armenia, were illegitimate and contrary to
international peace efforts in the region.
"Turkey believes that such unilateral initiatives ... will not help
efforts for a peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh problem and
considers these elections to be illegitimate," Foreign Ministry
spokesman Namık Tan said in a statement.
Armenia is the only country to recognize Nagorno-Karabakh as an
independent state.
Turkey is one of Azerbaijan's staunchest allies, with which it also
has close ethnic bonds. It has refused to establish formal diplomatic
ties with Armenia out of solidarity with Azerbaijan in the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict but also because of Armenia's campaign to
have the World War I-era killings of Armenians under Ottoman Empire
rule internationally recognized as genocide.