Hungary’s recent transfer of Ramil Safarov to Azerbaijan was not aimed against Armenia and it cannot be considered as an insult to the Armenian people, Hungarian Foreign Minister János Martonyi said in a letter sent to his Armenian counterpart, Edward Nalbandian.
In his letter, Martonyi said the transfer of Safarov was in line with effective international regulations and Hungary’s practice in similar cases. Martonyi insisted that the transaction had been “purely of a legal nature.”
Martonyi also voiced regret over Armenia’s suspending diplomatic ties with Hungary, and referred to the traditional friendship between the two countries and the “Christian values connecting the two peoples for a thousand years.”
Suspending diplomatic relations could have serious ramifications that would not serve the interests of Armenia, Martonyi said.
The Hungarian FM also expressed support for the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in its efforts aimed at resolving the “Azerbaijani-Armenian tension” through negotiations.
Concluding his letter, Martonyi assured his Armenian counterpart of Hungary’s unchanged interest in further developing ties with Armenia, and called for a bilateral effort to find a way of restoring friendly ties.
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.
Ramil Safarov’s pardoning is condemned by virtually all international organizations.
