YEREVAN. – Yerevan State University (YSU) declined from participating in a conference to be held from Friday to September 10, and within the framework of the “South Caucasus and Neighbors” Program.

In connection with Hungary’s extradition of Ramil Safarov to Azerbaijan, YSU will not attend this event organized by the Budapest-based Central European University’s Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies (CEU CEMS) and several other European universities, and, also, this conference will not be convened at YSU.

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.