Hungary had not only acted in good faith when it repatriated the Azeri convicted for murdering an Armenian, but it did so according to European legal and civilized norms, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán told the country’s public radio in an interview broadcast on Friday.

In Orbán’s words, the events surrounding the current dispute between Azerbaijan and Armenia were not about Hungary, but about two other countries. “This dispute is not about us, this is not our conflict, this is not Hungary’s interest,” he stated. 

He added that it was in Hungary’s interest to “stay out of this conflict, and this is now the case.”

Hungary can be proud of its cabinet, which followed transparent European legal practice well known to all, Orbán said. If a state guarantees in writing that they will continue the sentence of a criminal convicted in Hungary, Hungary will transfer the person.

“If we get a written statement, we will fulfill the request,” Hungarian PM said.

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.    

Also, Zsolt Németh, Parliamentary State Secretary of the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, on September 2 met in Budapest with Azerbaijan’s Ambassador to Hungary, Vilayat Guliyev, and handed him a protest letter which stated that Azerbaijan’s is unacceptable.