Arkadi Ghukasyan

Who is Arkadi Ghukasyan?

Arkadi Ghukasyan was the third President of the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. He was elected as the President on 8 September 1997 and re-elected in 2002, until his term ended on 19 July 2007 and was succeeded by Bako Sahakyan.

Born in Stepanakert, in the Nagorno Karabakh Autonomous Republic of the Azerbaijan SSR on 22 June 1957, he graduated in 1979 from Yerevan State University with a degree in linguistics. He started his working career as a correspondent for "Soviet Karabagh" newspaper, becoming its Deputy Editor-in-Chief in 1981.

In 1991 Ghukasyan was elected to the first Parliament of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. In September 1992, he was appointed Political Adviser to the Chairman of the State Defense Committee, and headed the NKR delegations during OSCE negotiations with Azerbaijan.

Ghukasyan has been a member of Nagorno-Karabakh's Security Council since 1993. On 23 July 1993 he became the first Foreign Minister of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic.

He survived an assassination attempt in 2000. Samvel Babayan, whom he had recently sacked as defence minister, who than was convicted of organising the attack and sentenced to 14 years in prison.