Author: Kalantarian Kevo

ARMENIA NATIONALISTS: TALKS WITH AZERBAIJAN SENSELESS AFTER MURDERER’S RELEASE

Interfax
Sept 3 2012
Russia

The Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutiun), a nationalist
party, has proposed ending internationally brokered conflict settlement
talks with Azerbaijan in protest at Friday’s pardoning of an Azeri
army officer who murdered an Armenian counterpart in 2004 and at his
earlier extradition from Hungary.

Lt. Gurgen Markarian, who was attending an English language course in
Budapest under NATO’s Partnership for Peace program was axed to death
by Azeri Senior Lt. Ramil Safarov, who was attending the same course,
in February 2004.

In April 2006, a Budapest court sentenced Safarov to life imprisonment
without the right to appeal for pardon for the first 30 years of his
term. A Hungarian appeal court upheld the sentence in February 2007.

On Friday, Safarov was extradited to Azerbaijan and pardoned by
Azeri President Ilham Aliyev the same day. On Saturday, Azeri Defense
Minister Safar Abiyev had a meeting with Safarov at which he conferred
the rank of major on him, handed him keys to a new apartment and
returned him pay for eight and a half years.

In response, Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan said at a meeting with
foreign ambassadors that Armenia was suspending diplomatic relations
and all other official contacts with Hungary.

Dashnaktsutiun issued a statement arguing it would be senseless to
continue talks with Armenia in a bid to settle the two countries’
two-decade conflict over Azerbaijan’s breakaway Armenian-speaking
enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.

“We demand revising the need for further negotiations with Azerbaijan
on the Nagorno-Karabakh issue in the format of the Minsk Group of
the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. We also
demand practical measures to form a military and political alliance
between the Republic of Armenia and the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic,”
the party said in its statement.

“Historical experience has long brought it home to us that states base
their actions purely on their political and economic interests. They
are happy to trample over such things as international law, humanism
and moraility if this serves their needs. We must solve our problems by
ourselves, we must by ourselves break the hand that is raised against
us. To accuse others, ask others for justice, demand compliance with
proclaimed international law is a necessary but by and large hopeless
exercise,” Dashnaktsutiun said.

U.S. VETERAN DIPLOMAT DESCRIBES SAFAROV’S TRANSFER TO AZERBAIJAN AS A “TERRIBLE DEVELOPMENT”

Mediamax
Sept 4 2012
Armenia

Yerevan/Mediamax/. The veteran of U.S. diplomacy, former U.S.

Ambassador to Baku (1994-1997) Richard Kauzlarich described as a
“terrible development” the transfer of Ramil Safarov to Azerbaijan
and his pardon.

Richard Kauzlarich said this commenting on the article by Thomas de
Vaal “Safarov’s case- black week for Caucasus”, Mediamax reports.

“It also raises questions about both Hungary’s and Azerbaijan’s
commitment to rule of law,” he said.

Richard Kauzlarich is currently the Deputy Director of George Mason
University School of Public Policy

PROTESTS IN HUNGARY OVER MURDERER’S RETURN

Otago Daily Times

Sept 5 2012
New Zealand

Almost 2000 Hungarians have protested in Budapest against the
government’s decision to allow an Azeri soldier who had killed
an Armenian officer in 2004 to return home, leading to heightened
tensions between the neighbouring countries.

Last week Hungary released soldier Ramil Safarov to Baku, where Azeri
President Ilham Aliyev pardoned him on arrival. Safarov had served
eight years of his life sentence for killing an Armenian officer
during a NATO training in Hungary.

Armenia immediately broke diplomatic ties with Hungary and said
releasing Safarov, who was given a hero’s welcome on his return,
was a “grave mistake”.

Armenia and Azerbaijan have been at odds since the war between ethnic
Azeris and Armenians that erupted in 1991 over the mainly Armenian
Nagorno-Karabakh enclave. A ceasefire was signed in 1994 but new
cross-border clashes this year have prompted worries of a resumption
of fighting.

Hungary said it acted in compliance with international law and that
Azerbaijan had promised to uphold Safarov’s sentence. While the two
countries were in talks about developing closer economic ties, these
were in no way linked to the release of the soldier, it said.

Azerbaijan dismissed media reports that it planned to buy Hungarian
bonds, which blogs and newspapers had speculated might have played
a part in Safarov’s release.

Protesters chanting “We are sorry, Armenia” said they doubted the
government’s motives, adding that whatever the reasons, the decision
was unacceptable.

“Murderers should not be extradited to countries where it is clear
that ethnic hate crimes are considered heroism,” said protester Laszlo
Muhari, 30. “In a democratic country this is not acceptable.”

“(Prime Minister Viktor) Orban should stop lying and start giving
clear answers, because it is simply impossible that such a brutal
killer is just released without a background deal.”

PASSIONS AND HISTORY RUN DEEP IN SAFAROV CASE

EurasiaNet.org
Sept 5 2012
NY

September 5, 2012 – 2:51pm, by Arife Kazimova and Daisy Sindelar

A EurasiaNet Partner Post from: RFE/RL The details of the crime seem
anything but heroic: a young lieutenant hacking a fellow soldier
to death in his sleep, with an ax he had stealthily purchased hours
before.

But for many people in the South Caucasus nation of Azerbaijan,
the picture is not so simple.

Not when the assailant is an Azerbaijani whose hometown was brutally
seized by Armenian forces while he was still a teenager.

Not when the victim is an Armenian who allegedly insulted the
Azerbaijani flag.

And not when the circumstances that threw them together were conceived
by Western officials who had failed to consider the depths of the
two sides’ regional animosity.

So when Ramil Safarov returned home on August 31 after eight years
in a Hungarian jail for the 2004 murder of Gurgen Margarian at a NATO
Partnership for Peace exercise, many Azerbaijanis were unstinting in
their welcome:

“I think he was a hero, because he protected the honor and dignity of
the Azerbaijani people,” one woman told RFE/RL on the streets of Baku.

Another resident of the Azerbaijani capital said Safarov “did the
right thing” in killing Margarian.

On the other hand, Safarov’s extradition from Hungary last week
outraged Armenians and surprised many onlookers with the lavish
gestures that followed.

The 35-year-old lieutenant was not only granted an immediate pardon
from his life sentence, he was also promoted to the rank of major,
promised back pay, and presented with a free apartment.

Azerbaijani Defense Minister Safar Abiyev offered no rationale
for the promotion, simply congratulating Safarov on his return to
Azerbaijan and wishing him success in his future activities in the
military sector.

Anti-Armenian Invective

Local newspapers added to the fanfare, with headlines crowing that
Safarov’s release “will improve the psychological mood of society”
and calling him “a hero for the entire Muslim world.”

Safarov’s conviction as a calculating ax murderer did little to temper
most Azerbaijanis’ enthusiasm. If anything, the gruesome nature of his
crime only added to his appeal in a country where the public narrative
has been shaped to portray Safarov as the victim and Margarian as
the taunting aggressor.

Many Azerbaijanis repeat the theory that Margarian had urinated on
the Azerbaijani flag or used it to polish his shoes. Others allege
that the Armenian was not even asleep when the attack took place,
and that he had provoked the attack.

No evidence from Safarov’s 2006 trial in Budapest suggests either
claim is true. But some Azerbaijani observers say the legacy of the
Nagorno-Karabakh war and a steady diet of government anti-Yerevan
invective have combined to cement an almost pathological hatred of
Armenians in the minds of many Azerbaijanis.

“It’s not only the Armenian soldiers and officers who are occupying
our land that Azerbaijanis consider their enemy,” says Baku-based
political analyst Zardusht Alizadeh. “It’s not only the ‘Armenian
terrorists’ who were killed in the fighting. Because of a very
skillfully constructed propaganda campaign, it’s all Armenians who
are considered the enemy. That’s why a man who killed an Armenian in
his sleep is automatically categorized as a hero.”

The 1988-94 war over Nagorno-Karabakh — an Armenian-majority region
within Azerbaijani territory — ended with the deaths of tens of
thousands on each side and the displacement of hundreds of thousands
more.

It also left the region and surrounding territories under Armenian
control — for Baku, an unacceptable territorial loss of some 20
percent.

Nearly two decades later, the unresolved dispute remains the focus of
international negotiations whose partners, including the United States
and Russia, have frowned at Azerbaijan’s zealous embrace of Safarov.

But Azerbaijan — whose dynastic leader, Ilham Aliyev, is seen as using
his country’s massive oil wealth to buy silence on his authoritarian
practices — has shrugged off such criticism as hypocritical meddling.

Many in the country argue that the international community remained
silent when a case similar to Safarov’s unfolded years earlier
in Armenia.

In 2001, Yerevan granted an immediate pardon to Varoujan Garabedian,
a Syrian-born militant who killed eight people in a 1983 bomb attack
in a French airport.

Garabedian was returned to Armenia after serving 17 years of a life
sentence in France, and received his pardon while still in Yerevan’s
airport.

‘Radical Elements Are The Only Winners’

Erkin Gaderli, a lawyer and a member of the Republican Alternative
opposition group, says he believes “no one” in Azerbaijan “seriously”
thinks of Safarov as a hero.

But at the same time, he acknowledges that ordinary Azerbaijanis are
confounded by the continued deadlock over Nagorno-Karabakh, and have
fallen into a tit-for-tat relationship with Armenia, with each side
looking to best the other on even insignificant issues.

“There is an emotion growing in society, and it’s a reflection of
a deep frustration with the conflict in the occupied territories,”
Gaderli says. “And there is a growing expectation that somehow,
someday this must come to an end. Many people think that something
needs to be done in response to Armenia. So whatever Armenia has done,
for good or for bad, should somehow be retaliated.”

There are suggestions that Armenia may already be prepared to raise
the stakes, with the parliament in Yerevan now considering a hastily
submitted bill on recognizing Nagorno-Karabakh as an independent
country.

The outcome of such a provocation is worrisome to many who fear the
countries will return to a war footing.

Even without a resumption of violence, some observers find the Safarov
case a depressing development in a year when Azerbaijan has attempted
to buff its Western credentials by playing Eurovision host and joining
the UN Security Council.

In a piece published by the BBC’s Russian Service, Thomas de Waal,
a South Caucasus expert with the Carnegie Endowment for International
Peace, wrote that the affair struck a blow to many activists and
officials in Azerbaijan who have spent years quietly building a
dialogue with Armenia.

With Safarov’s hero-sized welcome such critical efforts may now be
lost. “After the authorities in Baku met the killer with open arms,
the country’s image has suffered enormous damage,” he wrote.

“Unfortunately, the only winners are the radical elements on both
sides.”

Editor’s note: Written and reported by Daisy Sindelar in Prague with
additional reporting from Baku by Arife Kazimova

RELEASE AND PARDON OF KILLER JEOPARDISES ARMENIA-AZERBAIJAN CEASEFIRE

Wikinews

Sept 5 2012

Following Hungary’s release and repatriation of convicted Azeri
axe-murderer, Ramil Safarov, who Azerbaijan subsequently pardoned,
Armenia announced it is “ready for war”.

The declaration is in-response to Safarov’s pardon and promotion,
despite the Azeri officer having been given a life sentence – with
a minimum jail term of 30 years, by Hungarian authorities in 2006.

Safarov was found guilty of the 2004 murder of Armenian officer Gurgen
Margaryan in Budapest, when both Safarov and Margaryan were attending
a NATO Partnership for Peace programme. Safarov killed Margaryan in
his sleep with an axe; the attack allegedly stemming from a desire
to avenge Azeris killed during the Nagorno-Karabakh War and being
mocked by Margaryan and another Armenian.

On his return home, Safarov was met with a hero’s welcome, given
a pardon by president Ilham Aliyev, promoted to the rank of major,
awarded eight-years of back-pay and given a house. Armenia sees these
acts, when it was expected that Safarov would serve out his prison
term in Azerbaijan, as highly provocative.

Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian declared: “We don’t want a war,
but if we have to, we will fight and win. We are not afraid of killers,
even if they enjoy the protection of the head of state” .

Historically both Armenia and Azerbaijan lay claim to some of the
same territories, an issue complicated by the intermingling of ethnic
populations so some areas have no clearly demarcated Azeri and Armenian
border; these potential sources of conflict remained quiescent whilst
both nations were subsumed by greater powers.

However, the collapse of the Ottoman and Russian Empires in the wake
of the First World War led to the Armenian-Azerbaijani War. With the
demise of the short-lived Armenian-Azerbaijan-Georgia Transcaucasian
Democratic Federative Republic, fighting broke out which only ended
when the two nations were annexed by the expanding Soviet Union.

With the USSR’s collapse, Armenia and Azerbaijan re-emerged as
independent states – as-did old rivalries over territory. Between
1988 and 1994 over thirty thousand people died, and a million were
displaced in bitter ethnic fighting between Armenians and Azeris over
the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh; despite an Organization for Security
and Co-operation in Europe brokered ceasefire, no final armistice
has been signed and intermittent violence between them the two states
continues. Nagorno-Karabakh remains legally part of Azerbaijan, but
under effective Armenian control. On multiple occasions president
Ilham Aliyev has stated his willingness to resort to force in order
to assert Azeri rule, with oil wealth tipping any local arms race in
favour of Azerbaijan.

On Friday, The National Security Council of Armenia decided to
break ties with Hungary during an emergency summit, describing the
Hungarian actions as a “grave mistake”. In turn, the Azeri ambassador
was summoned by Hungary on Monday regarding the breach of Azeri
assurances that Safarov would serve out the remainder of his sentence
in Azerbaijan.

ARMENIAN COUNCIL SAYS REPATRIATION OF AZERI SOLDIER “NAIVE, UNPROFESSIONAL” MOVE

Politics.hu

Sept 5 2012
Hungaria

The Hungarian government acted in good faith but was “naive and
unprofessional” when it decided to repatriate Ramil Safarov to
Azerbaijan, convicted for murdering an Armenian citizen in Budapest
in 2004, the head of the Armenian Minority Self-government said
on Tuesday.

There is no reason to assume that Hungary did not act in good faith
but the Ministry of Justice which should have acted as a guarantor
of professionalism “was not in top form,” said Simon Serkisian Suevan.

He presented an official statement by the council, which states that
Hungarian justice authorities “neglected moral considerations” when
they fulfilled Azerbaijan’s request. The Armenian self-government
is asking for an investigation into the case and its background in
order to reveal any political or potential criminal responsibility,”
the statement added.

Commenting on the recent burning of a Hungarian flag by protesters in
Yerevan following the Azeri’s repatriation, deputy head of the council
Avanesian Alexan Artin said it was an isolated action by extremists.

Most Armenians in Armenia have reacted calmly to the case.

Lawyer Gabriella Gaspar, who represented the victim in the proceedings
that followed the murder, said it was impossible to expect that
Safarov would continue to serve his sentence after his return home.

Hungary last week transferred Safarov back to his home country,
whereupon he was pardoned by the president and released. Armenia
suspended diplomatic ties with Hungary on Friday.

CONTACT, LEARN AND VOTE: ARMENIAN-AMERICANS CAN MAKE THEIR VOICES HEARD
By Jivan H. Purutyan

Local politics are often forgotten, overshadowed and swept under the
carpet, especially in the presidential election year.

Many of us are unaware of local elections and debates, assuming the
large ones are the only ones that matter. This could not be further
from the truth, however. There are three levels of government that
enact law: congress which ratifies laws for the country; a state
legislature that enacts laws statewide and city councilors that
approve laws for cities and towns. All three levels are capable of
affecting our daily lives and deserve equal attention from us as
Armenian-Americans and Americans, alike. Many people do not follow
local politics, and even fewer bother to vote. There is a belief
that change cannot be accomplished at the local level, but I strongly
disagree with this notion. Change starts at the local level, and then
expands. I would like to urge others to become involved, connecting
with elected officials and voicing goals and concerns. Elected
officials are our voice in representative government, and if we
show that as Armenians and individuals our issues matter, we will
have greater influence in our communities. If one is concerned about
issues such as immigration or our educational system, for example, it
does no good to complain behind closed doors. If we want to persuade
politicians to be concerned about issues important to our families, we
have to educate ourselves and show interest in the electoral process.

I have learned that a campaign has limited time and resources, which
are often spent on the media and targeting citizens who can make a
difference. When campaign workers connect with people using pamphlets,
going to door-to-door and calling homes, they usually contact those
that are interested in the process, and are sure to vote, evidenced
by voting in prior elections. Therefore, if we want a voice in the
political process, we must involve ourselves now, so as not to be
overlooked or forgotten. We can get involved just by learning about
the candidates and making it to the polls on election days.

As I have discovered, contacting a representative about issues most
pressing to us can be a challenge, but statewide candidates are
willing to spend time and discuss issues that affect us all.

Over the past few weeks I have met with Joe Mullin, who is running for
the 3rd Middlesex District state senate seat. He informed me about
the upcoming election, including his positions, such as “adequate
and accessible healthcare for all Americans.” For students like me,
and others wanting to learn more about our government, it is vital
to make contact with people who are knowledgeable and willing to
discuss the issues. In fact, I became involved with his campaign
because Mullin gave me a chance to participate in the campaign.

Another public servant that has taken time to discuss with me the
intricacies of local government is Peter Koutoujian, the incumbent
sheriff of Middlesex County who is running for re-election
this November. Koutoujian was previously a Massachusetts state
representative and has always made time to answer my questions.

Though there are flaws in the system, dollars seemingly wasted and
debates held in vain with little public response, if we make an effort
to learn about our government, it becomes more clear that it is in our
hands to shape. We have priorities as individuals and also within our
Armenian community. We have the power as a whole to make a difference.

However if we are not involved and organized, contacting politicians,
attending debates and voting and we don’t voice our needs, we will
never accomplish our communal goals.

First we must become informed and involved in the important political
life of our state, cities and towns. Then we can begin to cultivate
those who aspire to public service.

(Jivan Purutyan is a 15 year old from Concord, Mass., and a freshman
at The Middlesex School.)

PROTEST ACTION OUTSIDE PRESIDENTIAL RESIDENCE CANCELLED

06:27 pm | Today | Politics

The protest action scheduled for 4.00pm outside the presidential
residence in Yerevan has been cancelled.

The action, organized by the Student Union of the Armenian
revolutionary federation-Dashnaktsutyun (ARF-D) and the ARF-D Youth
Organization, was timed to coincide with the arrival of NATO Secretary
General Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

“The visit has been delayed for several hours for some technical
reasons. All scheduled meeting will be held on September 6,” the
press service of the RA Ministry of Foreign Affairs said.

Earlier, the organizers of the protest issued a statement urging
the NATO to express its clear-cut position on the extradition and
subsequent pardoning of Azerbaijani army serviceman Ramil Safarov.

“COUNTRY OF OUR DREAMS”?: NOT FOR SOME DIASPORA INVESTORS
By Gayane Abrahamyan

ArmeniaNow
05.09.12 | 11:17

President Sergh Sargsyan, meeting with Diaspora in London in July.

Business investors from Armenia’s far-flung diaspora, a key engine
for the South Caucasus country’s sluggish economy, increasingly are
expressing frustration with what they describe as Armenia’s corrupt
judicial system and state bureaucracy. The government, for its part,
asserts that it promotes favorable conditions for diaspora investors.

Reports vary about how large a stake diaspora investment holds in
Armenia’s Gross Domestic Product of $18.17 billion, the lowest in the
South Caucasus; estimates range from “60 to 70 percent” to as little
as 10 percent.

But, given the diaspora’s strong networks, keeping those investors
happy is key. “Profit, while at the same time building the country
of our dreams,” President Serzh Sargsyan urged diaspora Armenians in
London on July 31.

In interviews with EurasiaNet.org, though, some diaspora investors
claim that such appeals fail to materialize into reality.

“Diaspora Armenian businesspersons are leaving Armenia to avoid
total bankruptcy,” alleged Valerie Ashkhen Gortsunian, the founder of
coffee importer and popular retailer Le Cafe de Paris, which employs
50 people in Yerevan.

As part of a divorce from her husband, Armenian jazz drummer Vazgen
Assatrian, Gortsunian lost control over her company in 2007 when a
Yerevan court awarded Assatrian half of the property rights in Le
Cafe de Paris. The decision was made despite a marriage contract,
signed in France, which defined Gortsunian as the sole owner of the
business, she said.

Faced with a “huge” 80-million-dram fine (about $200,000) for unpaid
taxes – a fine Gortsunian says should be applied to the company itself
rather than her personally – the diaspora businesswoman says she
eventually had to sell her remaining half-stake in Le Cafe de Paris.

Reasons for why the court did not honor the terms of Gortsunian’s
alleged marriage contract were not immediately available. Gortsunian
charges that her ex-husband, a prominent musician, used “bribes,
acquaintances, connections with the top” to secure the ruling.

Assatrian declined to comment to EurasiaNet.org about the case.

Gortsunian, who moved back to France from Yerevan this January, says
that she “ended up leaving Armenia empty-handed” after investing
roughly $2 million into the company since 1995.

“If the president makes promises, offers assurances for us to come and
invest, he has to ensure fair competition as well,” she fumed. “The
corruption of Armenia’s judicial system has reached a point when it’s
simply impossible to run a business there.”

Edmond Khudian, a real estate investor from Glendale, California,
has similar complaints.

In 2010, Khudian filed a lawsuit against his two Armenian partners,
Eduard Yesaian and Vladislav Mangasarian, in construction business
Arin Capital for allegedly embezzling funds from the company and
forging his signature on documents for the sale of apartments in a
13-storey building in downtown Yerevan that had already been sold to
diaspora buyers.

When the company declared bankruptcy, the initial diaspora buyers
were unable to reclaim the $4 million they had paid for the flats.

In 2010, Khudian filed a criminal case against Arin Capital, but claims
that the company’s director, Eduard Yesaian, has not been called in
for questioning and that his own fingerprints have not been taken to
test his accusation of forgery.

“No action has been taken to investigate those deals, because they
have powerful sponsors in the top,” he said in reference to Yesaian,
whom he described as a friend of President Sargsyan’s brother, Levon.

Levon Sargsyan, a former member of parliament for the ruling Republican
Party of Armenia, has denied the acquaintance.

Contacted by EurasiaNet.org about Khudian’s charge of deliberate
negligence, General Prosecutor’s Office case investigator Tigran
Harutiunian responded that “[i]t’s my business when to call in someone
for questioning.”

“This case needs more time than the diasporan thinks,” Harutiunian
said, hanging up the phone.

Similar scenarios have marked the investments of several other
diaspora Armenians, leading to the loss of sums ranging from a few
hundred thousand dollars to a few million.

Senior officials have been quick to absolve the government from any
blame for the failed investments. In general, the losses of diaspora
investors are “not massive, and the state isn’t at fault, but rather
some deceitful people and diaspora Armenians’ lack of knowledge about
Armenia’s legislation,” asserted Armen Alaverdian, deputy chairperson
of Armenia’s State Revenue Committee.

One advocacy group for diaspora Armenians argues otherwise. The main
stumbling block for diaspora investors, claimed Chamber of Advocates
Vice-President Nikolai Baghdasarian, a member of the Initiative Group
for the Protection of Diaspora Armenian Investors’ Rights, occurs when
individuals in the elite abuse their ties to the state bureaucracy.

“Documents are forged and through these ‘legal’ documents everything
is seized and appropriated, and when the [diaspora] investor turns
to the courts, fake bankruptcy is declared,” claimed Baghdasarian.

International monitors long have chastised Armenia for a judiciary
system that allegedly does the executive branch’s bidding and for
widespread corruption among government bureaucrats. The 2012 US
Department of State Human Rights Practices Report identified corruption
as “a serious problem.”

“Officials frequently engaged in corrupt practices with impunity,
and authorities took limited preventive measures,” the report found.

Armenia’s courts, meanwhile, are expected “to find the accused guilty
in almost every case.”

But Minister of Diaspora Hranush Hakobian is convinced that Armenia’s
diaspora still believes in the government’s sincerity. “Those cases
will not affect the overall sentiment” of Diaspora investors toward
Armenia,” she told EurasiaNet.org.

“The issue here is not about trust, but, rather, [the] economic
profitability” of individual investments, Hakobian stressed.

Economy Minister Tigran Davtian agrees, telling EurasiaNet.org that
“serious investors” take into consideration “weighty international
ratings” that show supposed improvements in Armenia’s business climate,
and “macroeconomic data” that shows 8 percent growth in the first
five months of 2012, rather than individual cases” of bad investments.

“Naturally, we don’t want our compatriots to leave Armenia in
disappointment, but not everybody can succeed in business,” said
Davtian.

(This article was commissioned by Eurasianet: )

HUNGARY FOLLOWED INTERNATIONAL LEGAL PROCEDURE IN AZERI KILLER TRANSFER, SAYS STATE SECRETARY

Politics.hu
Sept 3 2012
Hungary

Hungary has nothing to fear in connection with the recent transfer
of the Azeri axe murderer, Ramil Sahib Safarov, back to his home
country – where he was pardoned by the president and released –
since it followed a legal procedure according to the requirements
of an international compact, Peter Szijjarto, the state secretary in
charge of foreign affairs at the prime minister’s office, said Monday
television interviews.

The transfer, which has led to Armenia suspending diplomatic ties with
Hungary since one of its citizens, Gurgen Margaryan, was brutally
murdered by the Azeri, was carried out in a transparent way on
the basis of the Strasbourg Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced
Persons, and there has been no kind of cover-up, Szijjarto told public
television M1.

Asked about accusations that a backroom deal had been done between
Hungary and Azerbajjan, Szijjarto said such people were “fantasists”,
and no such deal had been concluded.

In a separate interview, Szijjarto told commercial broadcaster TV2
that it would have been a real scandal had Hungary violated any kind
of international agreement.

Armenia decided to break diplomatic ties with Hungary, Armenian
President Serzh Sargsyan said in Yerevan on Friday.