Author: Baghdasarian Karlen

ON THE MEETING OF THE FIRST DEPUTY MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION A.I. DENISOV WITH THE AMBASSADOR OF ARMENIA TO MOSCOW OLEG YESAYAN

Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation
Sept 3 2012

On 3 September the First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of
the Russian Federation A.I. Denisov met with the Extraordinary and
Plenipotentiary Ambassador of the Republic of Armenia in Moscow on
his request.

During the course of conversation the situation created by the actions
of the Azerbaijani and Hungarian authorities against Azerbaijani
serviceman Ramil Safarov was discussed as well as serious concern about
the possible negative impact of its development on the stability and
security of the region was expressed.

From: Baghdasarian

MOSCOW CRITICIZES PARDONING OF ARMENIAN OFFICER’S KILLER

Interfax
Sept 3 2012
Russia

The steps of the Azeri and Hungarian authorities, which resulted in
the release and pardon of Azeri serviceman Ramil Safarov who killed
Armenian officer Gurgen Margarian in Budapest in 2004, disagree with
international efforts aimed to ease Armenian-Azeri tensions, Russian
Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said in a statement
published on the ministry website on Monday.

“We think that these actions of the Azeri and Hungarian authorities
disagree with the efforts coordinated on the international level,
primarily at the OSCE Minsk Group, and aimed to lower regional
tensions,” he said.

“Russia, a co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group assisting the Karabakh
settlement, is deeply concerned about the pardoning of Azeri serviceman
R. Safarov, whom a Hungarian court sentenced to life in jail for the
cruel murder of an Armenian officer in Hungary in 2004, and the earlier
decision of the Hungarian authorities to extradite him to Azerbaijan,”
Lukashevich said.

“We expect the OSCE Minsk Group cochairmen to evaluate the situation
shortly,” he noted.

It was reported earlier that Azeri army officer Ramil Safarov killed
Armenian army lieutenant Gurgen Margarian with an axe in his sleep
in Budapest on February 19, 2004. Both officers attended an English
language course under NATO’s Partnership for Peace program in Hungary.

A Budapest court sentenced Safarov to life without the right to parole
during the first 30 years of his imprisonment on April 13, 2006.

However, Hungary extradited Safarov to Azerbaijan on August 31, 2012.

Azeri President Ilham Aliyev immediately pardoned Safarov, promoted
him to major, gave him keys to a new apartment and paid allowance
for 8.5 years.

Azerbaijan “flagrantly breaches international laws, international
conventions and agreements,” Nalbandian said.

Yerevan said earlier that it broke up diplomatic relations with
Hungary over the incident.

In turn, the Hungarian Justice Ministry said Safarov was extradited
to Azerbaijan pursuant to the Strasbourg Convention on Extradition
signed in 1983.

“The return of Ramil Safarov is a question of bilateral relations of
Azerbaijan and Hungary, resolved within the legal framework. It does
not conflict with international legal norms,” Azeri Foreign Ministry
spokesman Elman Abdullayev said.

The U.S. demanded Hungarian explanations of the transfer of Safarov
to Azerbaijan on August 31. U.S. National Security Council press
secretary Tommy Vietor expressed concern over his pardon.

From: Baghdasarian

IT IS UNACCEPTABLE THAT A CONVICTED MURDERER IS WELCOMED AS A HERO IN AZERBAIJAN, COE SECRETARY GENERAL SAID

Mediamax
Sept 4 2012
Armenia

Yerevan, September 4. /Mediamax/. In today’s statement the Council
of Europe’s Secretary General Thorbjorn Jagland said that murder –
such as that committed by Ramil Safarov – cannot be glorified.

“Ramil Safarov was convicted for murder and sentenced to life
imprisonment in Hungary. On August 31, he was transferred to
Azerbaijan, and immediately pardoned. I do not want to comment on
the legal proceedings, but I find it unacceptable that a convicted
murderer is welcomed as a hero”, – CoE Secretaru General said.

“I reject the prospect of a world whose moral code begins to fray,
where respect for human dignity is denied. This is not the Europe that
we should wish for future generations. I condemn such glorification
of crime, and urge that we all work to uphold the respect for life,
and our values as defended by the Council of Europe”, he said.

From: Baghdasarian

PARDON OF AX KILLER MAY REKINDLE WAR IN OIL-RICH CAUCASUS (BAKU)

NorthJersey.com

Sept 5 2012

BAKU-AZERBAIJAN ~W Azerbaijan’s pardon of a man convicted of killing
an Armenian army officer with an ax risks reigniting a 20-year-old
war between the two foes in the energy- rich South Caucasus.

Ramil Safarov, who was serving a life sentence for slaying Gurgen
Margaryan in Budapest in 2004, was pardoned by Azeri President Ilham
Aliyev and promoted after Hungary transferred him home Friday.

Armenia’s parliament was to hold an emergency session Wednesday while
Europe, the United States and Russia have expressed “deep concern”
about regional stability.

After the 1991 Soviet breakup, energy-exporter Azerbaijan fought
Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave, leaving tens of thousands
dead and more than 1 million displaced. While border skirmishes since
a 1994 cease-fire haven’t triggered renewed conflict, Safarov being
honored threatens the status quo. The territory remains a potential
flash point in a region that borders Iran and Turkey and endured a
2008 Russia-Georgia war.

Safarov’s pardon “is a serious blow to confidence building and trust
between Azerbaijan and Armenia,” Sabine Freizer, director of the
International Crisis Group’s Europe Program in Istanbul, said Tuesday.

“Both in Baku and in Yerevan, there’s a growing public impression that
the time to return to war to defeat the enemy permanently has come.”

The Armenian dram strengthened less than 0.1 percent against the
dollar today to 410.5500 after falling yesterday to the weakest level
since Aug. 21, data compiled by Bloomberg show. The Azeri manat was
unchanged at 0.7845 per dollar.

Armenia has severed diplomatic ties with Hungary and lawmakers plan
to condemn Azerbaijan’s actions. President Serzh Sargsyan expressed
anger at the decision to pardon Safarov.

“The Armenians must not be underestimated. We don’t want a war, but
if we have to, we will fight and win,” he said Sept. 2 in comments
published on his website for Nagorno-Karabakh’s Independence Day. “We
are not afraid of murderers, even of those who enjoy the highest
patronage. And again our words fall on deaf ears. Well, they have
been warned.”

Armenian terrorist organization ASALA, which has previously claimed
responsibility for killing Turkish diplomats, sent a threatening letter
to Azerbaijan’s embassy in Budapest, Azartac, the Azeri state-run news
service, reported Tuesday. Security at embassies has been stepped up,
the Foreign Ministry said.

Sargsyan has instructed his security services to kill Safarov,
Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry said. Phone calls Tuesday evening to
Armen Arzumanyan, a spokesman for the Armenian president’s office,
went unanswered.

Peace in the region “depends entirely on Armenia,” Elnur Aslanov,
head of the political analysis and information- provision department
at the Azeri president’s office, said Tuesday, calling Sargsyan’s
comments provocative.

“It’s a bit odd to hear such bloodthirsty threats and calls for
intolerance from a head of state in the 21st century,” Aslanov said.

Safarov, a lieutenant when he committed the murder, received a hero’s
welcome last week in the Azeri capital, Baku, and was promoted to
the rank of major. He was also given eight years’ of back pay and an
apartment, the APA news service reported, citing the Defense Ministry.

Safarov, 35, had been attending language classes with Margaryan in
Budapest in February 2004 as part of training conducted by the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization.

The U.S., France and Russia, which are leading efforts to resolve
the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute, Sept. 3 urged Azerbaijan and Armenia
to persist with negotiations.

“We are communicating to the Azerbaijani authorities our
disappointment about the decision to pardon Safarov,” the White House
said Friday. “This action is contrary to ongoing efforts to reduce
regional tensions and promote reconciliation.”

President Obama and his French and Russian counterparts called in
June on the two former Soviet republics to accelerate a road map for
resolving the status of Nagorno- Karabakh, respect the 1994 cease-fire
agreement and abstain from hostile rhetoric.

Talks brokered by Russia last year between Sargsyan and Aliyev failed
to yield an accord on the so-called Basic Principles to allow a
peace agreement to be reached. Azerbaijan’s and Hungary’s actions
undermine international efforts to reduce tensions in the region,
Russia’s Foreign Ministry said Monday.

The European Union said the same day that it was in contact with both
sides in a bid to head off any potential hostilities.

“We are particularly concerned about the possible impact that
these developments might have on the wider region,” Maja Kocijancic,
spokeswoman for European Union foreign-affairs chief Catherine Ashton,
told reporters in Brussels. “We call on Azerbaijan and Armenia to
exercise restraint on the ground and in public statements in order
to prevent any kind of escalation of this situation.”

Companies led by London-based BP Plc have invested more than $35
billion in Azerbaijan’s oil and natural-gas fields. Azerbaijan can
pump as much as 1.2 million barrels of oil a day to Turkey through
the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, which is part-funded by the West
to allow supplies to bypass Russia.

The country may also be a source of natural gas for Azerbaijan’s
EU-backed Trans-Anatolia pipeline across Turkey.

Azerbaijan, whose economy grew 0.1 percent last year, used surging oil
prices to double military spending to more than $2 billion in 2010,
emboldening Aliyev to threaten the use of military force to regain
Nagorno-Karabakh. Regular border clashes continue to break out.

Military spending will reach $3.6 billion this year, about 60 percent
more than Armenia’s state budget, Aliyev told a Cabinet meeting in
June. Azerbaijan’s army numbers 56,840, according to The Military
Balance 2012, published by the International Institute for Strategic
Studies in London.

Armenia’s economy is set to expand 3.8 percent this year, according
to the International Monetary Fund. Growth is helped by large amounts
of investment from Iran, which has benefited as Armenia’s ties with
Azerbaijan and Turkey have soured, Vadim Mukhanov, an analyst at the
Moscow State Institute of International Relations, said today by phone.

Armenia’s army totals 45,846, more than half of which are conscripts,
while Russia’s air force provides national air defense, according to
The Military Balance.

The fallout over Safarov’s release probably won’t spark a new armed
conflict, according to Alexei Malashenko, a Middle East analyst at
the Carnegie Center in Moscow.

“There have been more border skirmishes between the two countries this
year, but this is far from a war,” he said yesterday by phone. The
situation simply shows that the two countries “aren’t prioritizing
reconciliation.”

June was the deadliest month “in a long time” for border clashes, with
at least 10 people confirmed killed, the ICG’s Freizer said. An Azeri
soldier died and another was wounded in clashes along the cease-fire
line last week, according to Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry. Armenia
denies Azeri claims that two of its soldiers were also killed.

The “glorification” of Margaryan’s murder by Azerbaijan closes any
avenues for normalizing relations with Armenia and should concern
the West and Russia, according to IHS Global Insight analyst Lilit
Gevorgyan.

This “certainly increases the security risk for the region,” Gevorgyan
said by e-mail. “A new war is the last thing that the EU, U.S. and
Russia need right now in that region with the escalation of relations
with Iran.”

With assistance from Edith Balazs in Budapest, Helena Bedwell in
Tbilisi, Jones Hayden in Brussels and Stepan Kravchenko and Stephen
Bierman in Moscow.

From: Baghdasarian

A HERO’S WELCOME FOR A CONVICTED KILLER REIGNITES TENSIONS

Pittsburgh Post Gazette

Sept 5 2012

MOSCOW — Ramil Safarov stepped uncertainly off the plane in his
native Azerbaijan last Friday, returning home after spending eight
years in a Hungarian prison for a gruesome murder. But it took only
a few minutes for the celebrations to begin. There was a pardon,
a new apartment, eight years of back pay, a promotion to the rank of
major and the status of a national hero.

Mr. Safarov, 35, was already famous because of his crime. Eight years
ago, carrying an ax, he crept into a dormitory room in Hungary where
an Armenian serviceman, a fellow student in a NATO-sponsored English
class, slept, and nearly decapitated him.

But now Mr. Safarov will almost certainly go down in history for
the way he was freed, an episode people have started to call “The
Safarov Affair.”

The backlash has embarrassed Hungary, which agreed to extradite Mr.

Safarov on the assumption that he would serve at least 25 years of
a life sentence. It has set off protests in Budapest and enraged
Armenia, where activists pelted the Hungarian Embassy with eggs and
burned Hungarian flags.

And it threatens to end the lengthy peace process that has kept
Azerbaijan and Armenia from sliding back into bloody conflict over
the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. Mr. Safarov, who was a
boy during the war with Armenia, embodies the hatred that has pooled
deeply in the public as leaders have sat through rounds of faltering
negotiations.

“If we have no process, what’s left is a vacuum, which gets filled
with an escalation toward war; we’ll see how the Armenian side reacts,
but that’s my fear,” said Thomas de Waal, a Caucasus specialist at
the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. “It’s
suddenly more dangerous.”

Mr. Safarov, then a lieutenant, and his victim, Lt. Gurgen Markarian,
got to know each other in Budapest as members of an English-language
course organized by NATO’s Partnership for Peace, which was developed
to build ties with former Soviet allies in Eastern Europe.

Mr. Safarov told the police that his Armenian classmates had insulted
him and that he had grown increasingly angry, finally buying an ax and
waiting until before dawn one day to carry out his plan. He passed
those hours by finishing his English homework and taking a bath,
according to a transcript of the interview published by Armenian
activists.

After Mr. Safarov was arrested, Azerbaijan’s Foreign Ministry released
a statement describing his family’s losses during the war with Armenia,
and suggesting that Lieutenant Markarian had goaded him.

“There are indications that the Armenian servicemen repeatedly insulted
the honor and dignity of the Azerbaijani officer and citizen,”
the statement said. “All this would have inevitably influenced the
suspect’s emotional state.”

Oil-rich Azerbaijan carried out a sustained lobbying effort to
extradite Mr. Safarov from Hungary, over the protests of Armenian
officials. The Hungarian government, under pressure to explain its
decision to turn over Mr. Safarov, has said it received written
assurance from Azerbaijan that he would not be paroled until he had
served 25 years in Lieutenant Markarian’s murder.

On Friday, though, he was pardoned by Azerbaijan’s president, Illham
H. Aliyev. Mr. Safarov’s presence so electrified citizens that all
day strangers congratulated one another on the streets of Baku.

It is not clear how the Armenian government will respond to Mr.

Safarov’s release. “The Armenians must not be underestimated,”
President Serzh Sargsyan warned on Sunday. “We don’t want a war, but
if we have to, we will fight and win,” he said. “We are not afraid
of murderers, even those who enjoy the highest patronage.”

Richard Giragosian, an analyst based in Yerevan, Armenia, said that
he doubted that either side was seeking a war, but that unfolding
events risked “a war by accident.”

An Armenian opposition party on Tuesday proposed formally recognizing
Nagorno-Karabakh as independent — a step that would signal the final
collapse of peace talks that have long been encouraged by Russia
and the West. Armenia could ratchet up the confrontation by opening
an airport in Stepanakert, the capital of the disputed territory,
or by responding overwhelmingly to cease-fire violations.

“Each side is escalating,” Mr. Giragosian said. “It’s almost like a
matter of physics. For every action there is a reaction.”

Mr. Aliyev, Azerbaijan’s president, has invested vast sums in his
country’s international standing, most recently serving as host of
the Eurovision Song Contest, but waves of condemnation have emerged
since Friday — most swiftly from the United States, which issued
statements saying officials in Washington were “extremely troubled”
and “deeply concerned.” On Monday, Russia’s Foreign Ministry expressed
“deep concern, noting the case’s “extreme atrocity.”

Zerdusht Alizadeh, an opposition politician and analyst at the Helsinki
Citizens’ Assembly, said Mr. Aliyev was looking ahead to elections
next year, and had little to show for the drawn-out efforts to mediate
the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh. Mr. Safarov’s homecoming, he said,
was a far simpler way to declare victory.

“Giving so much support to a hero — a person who killed an Armenian —
makes the president a hero, too,” he said.

By Tuesday, though, the backlash was dominating the day’s news
coverage, and Mr. Safarov had made no further public appearances.

The episode, Mr. Giragosian said, was a reminder of the depth and
force of the ethnic grievances left behind as the Soviet empire
receded across Europe.

“It’s almost like the Balkans was — we had no idea of the barbarity
of these people,” he said. “Holding a grudge for 100 years is nothing.

It’s like a blood vendetta. At the same time, there are wider
implications; it increases an already worrisome trend toward possible
renewed conflict here.”

Shahla Sultanova contributed reporting from Baku, Azerbaijan.

Correction: September 5, 2012, Wednesday

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
An earlier version of this article referred incorrectly to Zerdusht
Alizadeh. He is male.

Correction: September 5, 2012, Wednesday

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article
mistakenly said Azerbaijan’s president, Illham H. Aliyev, greeted
Ramil Safarov at the airport.

From: Baghdasarian

AZERBAIJAN RELEASE OF CONVICTED MURDERER SPARKS ROW

Legalbrief

Sept 5 2012

International criticism and concern has been growing following the
release of a convicted murderer after his transfer from Hungary
to Azerbaijan.

A BBC News report notes that Russia condemned Azerbaijan’s decision
to pardon Ramil Safarov, who hacked an Armenian to death in Hungary
in 2004. Other groups called for calm and said the incident should
not derail peace talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan. However,
Armenia’s President said his country would be ready if war were
to break out between the two. At the weekend hundreds of Armenians
protested outside Hungary’s consulate in the capital Yerevan, burning
Hungarian flags and pelted the mission with eggs. Ramil Safarov was
given a hero’s welcome on his return to Azerbaijan last week. As well
as an official pardon from President Ilham Aliyev, he was promoted
to the rank of major, given a flat and all the pay he had lost since
his arrest eight years ago. Safarov killed Armenian soldier Gurgen
Markarian at a military academy in Budapest in 2004, where both
servicemen attended English-language courses organised by Nato.

From: Baghdasarian

HERO’S WELCOME FOR AZERI AXE KILLER SPARKS FURY IN ARMENIA

IBTimes.co.uk

Sept 5 2012

Soldier who killed Armenian lieutenant at Nato peace summit released
early by Hungary and pardoned

By Umberto Bacchi:

An Azeri axe murderer has received a hero’s welcome on his release
from prison where he served eight years for killing an Armenian
army officer.

Lt Ramil Safarov of the Azeri army was sentenced in 2004 to 30 years
in jail for attacking Armenian army Lt Gurgen Margaryan, 26, who was
asleep at the Budapest military academy in Hungary. The two had been
attending a Nato “Partnership for peace” training programme.

Margaryan was almost beheaded by 16 axe blows from Safarov, the court
heard. The defendant then repeatedly stabbed the corpse in the chest.

Safarov’s murderous attack was in response to Margaryan jeering
about Nagorno-Karabakh, a predominantly Armenian enclave inside Azeri
territory which claimed independence in 1991 during the war between
the two countries.

Safarov was a refugee from the region.

From: Baghdasarian

THE HUNGARIAN GOVERNMENT’S REACTIONS TO THE SUDDEN AND UNEXPECTED RELEASE OF RAMIL SAHIB SAFAROV BY AZERI AUTHORITIES

Prime Minister’s Office

Sept 5 2012
Hungary

Prime Minister Viktor Orban emphasised on Monday that Hungary complied
with international regulations regarding Ramil Sahib Safarov’s transfer
to Azerbaijan. He added that the rules of international law are shaped
openly and not on the basis of secret agreements.

Regarding the sudden and unexpected release of Safarov by Azeri
authorities on Friday, the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs
and Ministry of Public Administration and Justice released a joint
statement emphasising that Safarov’s transfer was prepared and carried
out by Hungary transparently and in accordance with international law.

Hungary expects the same approach from its international partners
the statement added, also underlining the country’s profound respect
for Armenia.

Following the international outcry of Armenians, Parliamentary State
Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Zsolt Nemeth asked
Vilayat Guliyev, Azerbaijan’s Ambassador to Hungary to his office to
inform him about the position of the Hungarian Government and handed
over a diplomatic note to the Ambassador. The diplomatic note stated
that Azerbaijan’s actions were in sharp contrast with the assurance
received earlier from the Deputy Minister of Justice of the Republic of
Azerbaijan in his letter of 15 August 2012, addressed to the Ministry
of Public Administration and Justice of Hungary. In this letter the
Republic of Azerbaijan, quoting the relevant international Convention,
undertook that the sentenced person will serve the remaining part of
his prison sentence in the Republic of Azerbaijan and may be released
on conditional parole only after he has served at least 25 years of
his sentence.

State Secretary for Foreign Affairs and External Economic Relations
Peter Szijjarto in several television and radio interviews informed
the public that every aspect of the transfer was in accordance with
the 1983 Strasbourg Convention and was a transparent procedure. He
denied every allegation indicating that the case was influenced by
energy relations between Hungary and Azerbaijan.

(Prime Minister’s Office)

From: Baghdasarian

INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY’S TEPID REACTION TO SAFAROV RELEASE

Tuesday, September 4th, 2012

Slain Armenian soldier Gurgen Margaryan’s funeral

BY ARA KHACHATOURIAN

Public outrage around the world is on the rise following Hungary’s
extradition on Friday and Baku’s subsequent pardon of Ramil Safarov,
the axe murderer who killed an Armenian soldier in 2004 and received
a life sentence for the crime in 2006. US, European and other
stakeholders’ reaction, however, has been tepid at best, expressing
“concern” about the incident, but failing to issue terse condemnation
to Hungary and Azerbaijan for their brutal breech of justice and
international law.

The OSCE Minsk Group Co-chairmen scrambled over the weekend to manage
the crisis and the impact this issue will have on the peace process.

Reportedly at the urging of Armenia, the Co-chairmen, Robert Bradtke
of the United States of America, Igor Popov of Russia and Jacques
Faure of France, along with the Personal Representative of the OSCE
Chairperson-in-office, Andrzej Kasprzyk met separately with Armenia’s
Foreign Minister Eduard Nalbandian and his Azeri counterpart Elmar
Mammadyarov in Paris over the weekend.

“They [the co-chairmen] expressed their deep concern and regret for
the damage the pardon and any attempts to glorify the crime have done
to the peace process and trust between the sides,” said an official
statement released following the Paris meetings, reiterating the
imperative for a peaceful solution to the Karabakh crisis.

Asbarez reported on Friday that the White House issued a statement
saying “This action is contrary to ongoing efforts to reduce regional
tensions and promote reconciliation. The United States is also
requesting an explanation from Hungary regarding its decision to
transfer Safarov to Azerbaijan.”

Likewise, the State Department said it was “troubled” by the
extradition and pardon and “We are expressing our deep concern to
Azerbaijan regarding this action and seeking an explanation. We are
also seeking further details from Hungary regarding the decision to
transfer Mr. Safarov to Azerbaijan.”

Similar restrained expressions of “concern” were made by the EU’s
Catherine Ashton and Stefan Fule, as well as the foreign ministers
of France and Russia, the latter going a step further by saying that
the actions by Baku went counter to international norms.

The strongest statement was made by the Secretary General of the
Collective Security Treaty Organization, of which Armenia is a member.

“This move, which apparently was made for some political reasons,
cannot be justified. Making a hero out of the criminal will only
contribute to the escalation of the already high tension in the
region. I am convinced the international community will not hesitate
to give an impartial assessment to what happened,” Nikolay Bordyuzha
of the CSTO in his statement.

Furthermore, it took Hungary three days to summon the Azeri Ambassador
to Budapest to demand a response for Azerbaijan reneging on its
promise that Safarov would serve his life sentence in Azerbaijan,
claiming that Baku’s actions are unacceptable.

“Hungary refuses to accept and condemns the action of Azerbaijan,
which contradicts the relevant rules of international law and sharply
contrasts the undertaking of the Azerbaijani side in this matter,
confirmed by the Deputy Minister of Justice of the Republic of
Azerbaijan in his letter of 15 August 2012 addressed to the Ministry
of Public Administration and Justice of Hungary,” the document reads.

But the most egregious of all is NATO. Hungary is a NATO member. NATO
has invested a lot of capital in advancing the “Partnership for Peace”
program, which was the reason why Ramil Safarov and Gurgen Margaryan
were in Hungary in 2004. Yet NATO has yet to speak about this incident.

These stakeholders, who claim that the Karabakh conflict is of utmost
importance, should have condemned both Hungary and Azerbaijan for
their callous disregard for human life and not merely express “concern”
over this incident, which can have far reaching ramifications on the
peace process.

This latest ploy by Azerbaijan to make a hero out of a murderer
clearly proves the threat of what the international community has
been pursuing for the past 20 years, with the US, the EU and NATO
colluding to curtail the fundamental rights of Karabakh citizens
to self-determination.

The international community’s refusal to express outrage and
condemnation to the parties involved, signals their unwillingness
to face the realities, about which Armenians have been talking and
continue to pursue their failed policies of artificial even-handedness
at the risk of harming the national security of Armenia and the
Nagorno-Karabakh Republic.

From: Baghdasarian

ARMENIAN PARLIAMENT ADOPTS STATEMENT CONDEMNING SAFAROV’S EXTRADITION

08:09 pm | Today | Politics

Armenia’s National Assembly has adopted a statement condemning
Hungary’s decision to extradite Azerbaijani murderer Ramil Safarov
with a vote 90 to 1.

In connection with the extradition of Ramil Safarov who axed Armenian
officer Gurgen Margaryan during a NATO training event in Budapest
in 2004 and his pardoning by Azerbaijani President, the RA National
Assembly announces;

1. The Hungarian government also bears responsibility for the
incident. The National Assembly condemns the behavior of the
Hungarian authorities and suspends official relations with Hungary
on a parliamentary level.

2 With its step, Azerbaijan is again threatening the regional security
and deepening the atmosphere of hatred and enmity towards Armenians,
violating human rights enshrined by international documents, attempting
to abort the negotiations over the Karabakh peace deal and to frustrate
the efforts of the international community [especially those of the
OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs] in the negotiation process.

3. The atmosphere of hatred towards Armenians [deeply rooted on a
state level in Azerbaijan] and the recent developments prove that
the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic cannot be under Azerbaijani jurisdiction.

4. The National Assembly urges the parliaments of all countries
adhering to democratic values to condemn the deal concluded between
Azerbaijan and Hungary on August 31, 2012.

5. The National Assembly expects adequate response from international
parliamentary organizations and appropriate actions.

The document was adopted with slight changes.

From: Baghdasarian