“Elections” in Nagorno-Karabakh: political effect of private visit

The so-called elections which took place in Nagorno-Karabakh yesterday provoked many comments all over the world. An effort to cause side effects and draw attention succeeded, but negatively. Almost all the countries directly or indirectly involved in the mediation mission on a settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict criticized the voting, calling it a blow to the negotiating process.

However, the Armenian side managed to gather a small group of international observers (about 80 people) who came from a dozen countries, including Russia.

The Russian delegation included 16 people. It included LDPR MPs Alexander Balberov and Ivan Sukharev, a member of the Public Chamber of Russia Denis Dvornikov and others. However, both the State Duma and the Public Chamber stated that their members were making private visits to Karabakh.

Today the official representative of the Russian Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Alexander Lukashevich, said that Russia, along with other countries in the world, does not recognize Nagorno-Karabakh as an independent state and doesn’t believe that the so-called elections can define the peacemaking process around the conflict.

The position of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and the unofficial character of Russian citizen’s visits to Karabakh didn’t prevent them from making statements on the legitimacy of the so-called elections and the announcement of the current “president”, Bako Saakian, as the winner, who gained 66.7% of the votes cast. The group of Russian observers also made political statements about their high estimation of the elections and that the unrecognized NKR “is firmly on the path of development and democracy improvement, establishing a civil society.”

The Foreign Ministry of Azerbaijan asked the Azerbaijani embassy in Russia to investigate information on the illegal visit to occupied Azerbaijani territories by MPs of Russia. The statement was made by the official representative of the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry, Elman Abdullayev. “The people who visited the occupied territories are included on the list of undesirable people for visiting Azerbaijan,” he emphasized.