Bako Sahakyan

Bako Sahakyan (Armenian: Բակո Սահակյան, born 30 August 1960, sometimes transcribed as Bako Sahakian or Saakian) is the fourth president of the de facto Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. He was first elected as President on 19 July 2007 and on 19 July 2012 he was re-elected for a second five-year term, receiving around two-third of the votes. Sahakyan replaced Arkadi Ghukasyan, who had held the presidential post for two five-year terms.

Sahakyan was born in Stepanakert, NKAO, Azerbaijan SSR in 1960. After serving in the Soviet army, he worked for nine years in a Stepanakert factory. In 1990, he joined the Nagorno-Karabakh Defense Army, of which he became a deputy commander. In 1999, he was named interior minister of Nagorno-Karabakh. He also led the Nagorno-Karabakh security service from 2001 to June 2007, when he resigned in order to run in the 2007 Nagorno-Karabakh Presidential elections.

Bako Sahakyan ran as an independent and won the elections with 85 percent of the votes. Voters mainly turned to Sahakyan because of his record in the security services. He has pledged to seek full independence of Nagorno-Karabakh, using the example that international recognition of Kosovo as an independent state would pave the way for acceptance of Nagorno-Karabakh's sovereignty.