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BAKU. – Speaking at the Diplomatic Academy of Azerbaijan, in Baku, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen yet again expressed his concerns over Azerbaijan’s decision to grant Ramil Safarov pardon.

“I’m deeply concerned by Azerbaijan’s decision to grant officer Ramil Safarov pardon. What he committed in 2004 is a crime, which shall not be glorified. This breaks the trust and doesn’t help the [Nagorno-Karabakh] peace process,” said Rasmussen, whose words are quoted in his official Twitter account.        

Also, the NATO Secretary General informed that the Karabakh conflict has no military solution. “The sole road to progress is dialogue, compromise, and cooperation,” noted Rasmussen, Trend News Agency of Azerbaijan reports.   

“The regional tension must be reduced, and all the measures must be taken for cooperation and reconciliation,” he remarked.

As Armenian News-NEWS.am informed earlier, during his meeting in Baku, Anders Fogh Rasmussen will express his concerns, which are very clear, Rasmussen himself stated this Thursday during his joint briefing with Armenia’s President Serzh Sargsyan.  

“During my meeting in Azerbaijan I will convey to Azerbaijan’s president my message, which is very simple and apparent. I’m truly concerned by the granting of pardon to Ramil Safarov. What occurred eight years ago was a crime, and it must not be glorified. I will convey this message tomorrow [Friday] to Azerbaijan’s president,” Anders Fogh Rasmussen had stated.   

To note, 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.

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