Turkey’s Foreign Affairs Ministry issued a statement in connection with Ramil Safarov’s extradition to Azerbaijan and his being pardoned by the country’s president. 

Turkish MFA Spokesperson stated that Turkey was not involved in any way and at any phase of this process, and that the country follows with astonishment the Armenian Diaspora’s accusations hurled against Turkey, the Turkish Dunyabulteni website informs.          

“Such efforts, which have targeted Turkey with irrelevant claims and which have become habits by the circles that work against Turkey in every matter and possess bad objectives, are a part of the policy of slander against Turkey,” the Turkish MFA Spokesperson stated.

To note, Safarov had received military training in Turkey.

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.