The US Department of State is calling upon Azerbaijan to meet the commitments it had made to Hungary in advance of Ramil Safarov’s release. 

US Department of State Spokesperson Victoria Nuland commented on this matter.

“Well, we, as you know, issued a statement about this after the Hungarians released him back to Azerbaijan, and we have been in touch with the Azerbaijanis and urging them to meet commitments that they reportedly made to the Hungarians in advance of the release. We have some concerns, as we said at the beginning, about that issue in particular,” Nuland noted.

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.