six word

Azerbaijan refused on Monday to recognize the results of a vote in its breakaway region of Nagorno- Karabakh on its first constitution, rejecting Sunday's referendum as "a farce."

Nagorno-Karabakh is a region in Azerbaijan populated mostly by ethnic Armenians. Armed conflict broke out in the early 1990s between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the region's status after it declared independence, which was not recognized by the international community. A Russian-brokered ceasefire deal ended the fighting in 1994 but the dispute remains unsolved.

Preliminary results from the region's election commission on Monday showed 98.6 percent of the voters approved the region's constitution. The region had 90,000 voters and turnout stood at 87 percent.

"This referendum is a farce and it is not worth wasting time on it," Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mamedyarov was quoted by the RIA Novosti news agency as saying.

The European Union and other international organizations, including the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, said they would not recognize the referendum, Mamedyarov said.

Source: Xinhua

Labels: karabakh conflict