Bako Sahakyan

Bako Sahakyan, born August 30, 1960, Armenian: Բակո Սահակյան, sometimes transcribed as Bako Sahakian or Saakian, was the former security chief of the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic and currently the fourth president of the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. He replaced Arkadi Ghukasyan, who held the presidential post for two five-year terms.
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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.


President of Nagorno-Karabakh Republic Bako Sahakyan visited the village of Vank (Martakert region) to participate in an opening ceremony of a new building of a local hospital built with financial assistance of philanthropist Levon Hayrapetyan