YEREVAN. – Armenian National Security Council Secretary Arthur Baghdasaryan issued a congratulatory message to Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR) President Bako Sahakyan, in connection with Thursday’s presidential elections in the NKR, or Artsakh. 

“It is extremely important that newly-independent Artsakh, which has more than a twenty-year history, yet again demonstrated to the international community that it is an established democratic state, whose proof was yesterday’s nationwide elections. 

Congratulating you once again on winning the elections, I wish you good health and new success in the patriotic work, and well-being and peaceful skies to all Artsakh Armenians,” Arthur Baghdasaryan’s message reads.     

As Armenian News-NEWS.am informed earlier, incumbent NKR President Bako Sahakyan won the elections by receiving a great majority of the votes. According to preliminary figures, Sahakyan received 47,085 votes (66.7%), NKR National Assembly MP Vitali Balasanyan received 22,966 votes (32.5%), and Deputy Director Arkadi Soghomonyan of Academic Activities at the NKR capital Stepanakert Branch of State Agrarian University of Armenia received 594 votes (0.8%).