Azerbaijan instrumentalizing Nagorno-Karabakh conflict to cover up its failure in democracy – MFA spokesperson  

The spokesperson of Armenia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) has responded to the Azerbaijani authorities'r recent calls for electing representatives of Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh), criticizing that country's leadership for attempts to cover up their failure in democracy.

Question: Parliamentary elections were held in Azerbaijan and their international assessment is already available. At the same time the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan issued a statement on the parliamentary elections, which inter alia states that voters from Nagorno-Karabakh participated in those elections as well, and some newly elected  parliamentarians are also elected representatives of Nagorno-Karabakh. How would you comment on this?

Answer: On a number of occasions, we have stated that the establishment and enhancement of democratic societies in the region are in the interests of regional stability, development and prosperity.

We are aware of the assessment of those elections by the international observers. As it was assessed by the preliminary report of the international observation mission and the heads of the observation mission, the elections were marred by systematic and gross violations.

Once again Azerbaijan tries to instrumentalize the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict as a cover up of its failure in democracy and extremely low level of legitimacy of the elections. The false and empty claims of Azerbaijan pretending that representatives of Nagorno-Karabakh have been elected in those elections vividly illustrate Azerbaijan's distorted perception of democracy.

The people of Artsakh have never participated in the elections of Azerbaijan either now, or throughout the entire history of the Republic of Azerbaijan.

We would like to recall that the people of Artsakh will exercise their right to vote in the upcoming nationwide elections to be held in their Homeland on March 31, in which the people of Artsakh will elect their representatives - the President and the members of the National Assembly through free expression of will.