YEREVAN. – Azerbaijan’s granting pardon to Ramil Safarov will not contribute to peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Thursday, while addressing the students and faculty at Yerevan State University (YSU), and in response to the question as to whether the NATO Secretary General plans to apply certain sanctions upon Hungary and Azerbaijan.
As per Rasmussen, the brutal crime should not have been glorified in Azerbaijan.
“Azerbaijan’s decision to pardon will not contribute to peaceful settlement of the [Nagorno-]Karabakh conflict and to the dialogue between both countries. This is NATO’s position. NATO is not responsible for this crime, just as Hungary is not responsible for this crime. I understand that Safarov’s extradition to Azerbaijan was carried out in compliance with international standards. But I’m concerned by the decision to grant Safarov pardon in Azerbaijan,” the NATO Secretary General noted.
To note, around 200-300 youth had held a demonstration Thursday, in front of YSU Central Building, to protest NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen’s visit to Armenia and YSU.
The young people held banners protesting Hungary’s extradition of Ramil Safarov to Azerbaijan and his being pardoned there, Armenian News-NEWS.am reporter informed from YSU.
Aside from banners, the young protesters also held Gurgen Margaryan’s picture as well as his killer, Ramil Safarov’s photograph with a red cross on it.
And upon NATO Secretary General’s arrival at YSU, the youth chanted “Justice!” while Anders Fogh Rasmussen saluted them and entered the University.
While in Yerevan the NATO Secretary General will meet with President Serzh Sargsyan, FM Edward Nalbandian, and Defense Minister Seyran Ohanyan.
Armenian News-NEWS.am reported earlier that Ramil Safarov, a lieutenant in the Azerbaijani military, was extradited on August 31 from Hungary, where he was serving a life sentence—and with no expression of either regret or remorse—for the premeditated axe murder of Armenian lieutenant Gurgen Margaryan, in his sleep, during a NATO Partnership for Peace program in Budapest back in 2004.
As expected, Ramil Safarov’s return to Baku was welcomed, as was his act of murder, by the officials of president Ilham Aliyev’s government and much of Azerbaijani society, and the Azerbaijani president immediately granted him a pardon.
And Armenia’s President Serzh Sargsyan announced on August 31 that Armenia is suspending its diplomatic ties with Hungary.
