Kocharian, Robert (Sedraki) (1954– )

Armenian politician, prime minister of Armenia 1997–98 and president 1998–2008. He was a leader of the Karabakh movement, which in September 1991, proclaimed the ethnic Armenian dominated Nagorno-Karabakh enclave within Azerbaijan a republic. This led to armed conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan in 1991–92, when he was chair of the enclave's defence committee. He served as the first president of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic in Azerbaijan 1994–97 before becoming prime minister of Armenia in March 1997 and then president in March 1998. He was re-elected president in March 2003 and withstood opposition demonstrations against his rule in 2004. As president he held a series of negotiations with Azerbaijan aimed at achieving a peaceful solution to the dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh.

Born at Stepanakert in Nagorno-Karabakh, he was educated at the Yerevan Polytechnic Institute and trained as an engineer, working at the Karabakh Silk Production Factory 1981–87 and serving as the secretary of the factory's Communist Party 1987–89. In 1988 he became a leader of the Karabakh movement which demanded the region's breakaway from Azerbaijan. In 1989 he left the Communist Party and became a Deputy of the Armenian Supreme Council 1989–94. In May 1998 he lifted the ban on the centre-left Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) and brought two of its members into his cabinet.