Azernews.Az

ANKARA – Three ethnic Azerbaijani citizens of Turkey were elected at the parliamentary elections held on Sunday, Azerbaijan’s state body in charge of the diaspora said.

Sinan Ogan represents the opposition Nationalist Movement Party, while Ali Ozgunduz ran from the People’s Republic Party, Turkey’s main opposition bloc, and Haji Bayram Turkoglu is a member of the ruling AKP party.

Igdir-born Ogan, 44, is a graduate of the Marmara University. Ogan worked as deputy dean of a department at the Azerbaijan State University of Economics from 1993-2000. In 2000 he returned to Turkey to serve at the Eurasian Strategic Research Center as an expert on the Caucasus region. Ogan has helped to organize a slew of events devoted to Azerbaijan in Turkey. In a further effort to defend Azerbaijani interests in his country, he established the Turkey- Azerbaijan Society.

In a number of meetings prior to the elections to Grand National Assembly, Ogan pledged to advance the interests of not only Turkey but also Azerbaijan, if elected. His election platform focused on ways of resolving the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict over Nagorno Karabakh, shutting down Armenia’s obsolete Metsamor nuclear power plant, as well as solving a host of economic and social issues facing Igdir residents.

AKP representative Turkoglu, who was elected from the southern Hatay province, chairs the Hatay Azerbaijan Society, which is part of the Turkey-Azerbaijan Societies Federation.

AKP won just under 50 percent of the votes at the parliament elections, the party's largest electoral victory since it came to power in 2002.