Nagorny Karabakh, a breakaway region inside Azerbaijan with a predominantly ethnic Armenian population, is holding parliamentary elections on Sunday.
The elections to the 33-seat parliament in Nagorny Karabakh, which broke away from Azerbaijan and proclaimed independence after a war in the early 1990s, are being held using the party-list proportional representation and first past-the-post electoral systems.
The parties participating in the elections include the pro-government Free Motherland, the Democratic Party of Artsakh, Dashnaktsutiun and the opposition Communist Party. The parties need to clear a 6% electoral threshold to be elected to the parliament.
About 70 international observers from France, Russia, the United States, Italy, Germany, Greece, Great Britain and other countries are monitoring the elections.
A long-standing dispute over Nagorny Karabakh has been a sticking point in relations between the two South Caucasus states of Armenia and Azerbaijan.
A fragile ceasefire has been in place in the region since a brutal war between the two countries over the disputed enclave in early 1990s, which claimed more than 30,000 lives on both sides. Karabakh has since remained under Armenian control. Baku has fiercely opposed any decision on Karabakh that could be interpreted as giving the region independence from Azerbaijan.
The Nagorny Karabakh issue is an obstacle to opening borders and reestablishing diplomatic relations between Armenia and Turkey, which has close ties with Azerbaijan.
The conflict is mediated by the OSCE Minsk Group, comprising the United States, Russia and France.
YEREVAN, May 23 (RIA Novosti)
