Political: In their attitude towards elections in Nagorno Karabakh international organizations are guided by backward ideas of "cold war"

• Friday, July 20, 08:42

There is an impression that the heads of the authoritative international organizations who hurried to call illegitimate the presidential election in Nagorno Karabakh are guided by backward ideas of the "cold war", Alexander Tsinker, Head of the Observation Mission of the International expert Center for Electoral Systems (ICES), told ArmInfo. He said that denying the Karabakh people the right to vote in democratic elections, international organizations, actually, do not offer any alternative. "What do they offer? Do they offer the Karabakh people to live in an unorganized country having no leadership and no aspiration for human democratic values within 20 year?" Tsinker asks. "I think, that the European Commission, NATO and other organizations should be glad to see that the Karabakh people have their elected leader that could represent them at the negotiations for peaceful resolution of the conflict. It is necessary to deal with such legitimate and elected leader during the negotiations. If those representatives of international structures thought a bit longer, they would not make such narrow-minded statements," Alexander Tsinker said. However, he thinks that they find some obscure wordings to show that they are not against democracy, but NKR is an unrecognized state and they cannot recognize elections in that country.
Tsinker brought the example of the Middle East conflict, resolution of which often faces such obstacle as the Gaza Strip where there is no one to negotiate with and no one there takes responsibility for his words and decisions. That is why, the political expert said, it is very important for the peace process that Karabakh has its leadership that has a mandate to adopt decisions on behalf of the people and its decisions will be fulfilled. And no one inside that country will oppose the decisions of the leadership and peace talks. Tsinker believes that non-recognition of NKR makes the leadership of NKR exert genuine efforts to ensure maximum free, fair and transparent elections that leave behind many internationally recognized countries by their quality. In addition, candidates really compete and offer alternative election programs. Unfortunately, international structures seem to ignore existence of 160,000 residents of Nagorno Karabakh and their expectations and desire to live in line with democratic principles. Asked if fair and free elections will become an impetus for recognition of NKR as a party to the conflict, Tsinker said that this process is gathering pace. "This issue is now frequently touched upon at the OSCE MG. The two key candidates for the president of NKR also highlight importance of that issue and the people will not forgive them if they stop fighting for involvement of NKR into the peace process. Mediators, in their turn, are aware that they will face a fiasco in their mission if they fail to achieve anything in the regular cycle of negotiations. Moreover, they will be reluctant to admit that failure like U.S. President Obama admitted the failure of his mission in the Middle East. Therefore, involving Nagorno Karabakh into the peace talks would at least show the world community that mediators are seriously trying to get out of the deadlock. The mediation mission represented by the OSCE MG is like a damaged generator that operates without any effect as if it lacks a detail," the expert said.