Interfax, Russia
Sept 7 2012
Armenia leader chides intl community over Azerbaijan’s pardon of murderer
YEREVAN. Sept 7
President Serzh Sargsyan of Armenia has accused the international
community of a pro-Azeri position that, according to him, Azerbaijan
saw as green light to pardoning an Azeri army officer who had been
serving a life sentence in Hungary for murdering an Armenian officer
but was repatriated last week.
“On various occasions, we have repeatedly warned our partners that
one-sided formulas on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in official
documents and public statements that fail to reflect the true essence
of the negotiation process are dangerous, primarily because they serve
to support the destructive position of Azerbaijan,” Sargsyan said
during a joint news conference with NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh
Rasmussen on Thursday.
“It is this ‘political correctness’ that became the basis for such
outrageous conduct on the part of Azerbaijan,” the Armenian leader
said.
Rasmussen again expressed anxiety at the pardon of the officer and
argued that it was an obstacle to building confidence between the two
countries. However, he urged Armenia and Azerbaijan to continue to
seek a solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Ramil Safarov, who had the rank of senior lieutenant in the Azeri
army, murdered Armenian army lieutenant Gurgen Margarian in 2004 in
Budapest, where both had been attending an English language course as
part of NATO’s Partnership for Peace program.
In 2006, a Budapest court gave Safarov a life sentence without the
right to seek pardon for the first 30 years of the term.
However, Hungary extradited Safarov to Azerbaijan on August 31,
assuming that the officer would serve the rest of his term in his own
country, but Azeri President Ilham Aliyev pardoned him the same day
while Defense Minister Safar Abiyev promoted him to major, headed him
keys to a new apartment, and returned him pay for eight and a half
years.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
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