![Nagorno-Karabakh_Occupation_Map[1].jpg](https://cdn2.opendemocracy.net/media/original_images/Nagorno-Karabakh_Occupation_Map1_55u8IyY.jpg)
The situation in Nagorno-Karabakh. Wikimedia. Public domain.Even before the polls closed, reactions from the international community came in. A spokesperson of the European foreign policy Chief Federica Mogherini stated that ‘the European Union does not recognise the constitutional and legal framework of the elections'. The United States State Department indicated that ‘it will not accept the results of the elections’. Romania’s foreign ministry labelled the elections ‘illegal’. For Spain they were illegitimate. Ukraine stated that the results of the elections cannot have ‘any legal consequences’.
These comments were not made after the recent elections in Turkmenistan, where the current president was elected with 97.14% of the votes. Nor were they made after the presidential elections in Kazakhstan, which saw its current president re-elected with 97.75% of the votes in April. These statements concerned an election which was described by about 100 international observers as ‘in line with international standards’, ‘orderly, free, secret and equal’ with a turnout ‘many European countries would dream of’. The only problem was that these parliamentary elections took place in an internationally unrecognised state: the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic.
As the Soviet Union was collapsing, the Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh, which formed the largest ethnic group in the former oblast, voted massively in favour of independence. Newly independent Azerbaijan considered Nagorno-Karabakh an integral part of its territory and a bloody war followed. The Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, supported by neighbouring Armenia, was able to repel attacks from the Azeri army and a ceasefire was signed in 1994, which lasts to this day.
