YEREVAN. – The NATO Secretary General’s statement on granting a pardon to murderer Ramil Safarov was not quite clear, expert Richard Giragossian told Armenian News-NEWS.am.

Accoriding to him, the NATO Secretary General expressed his concerns about the Safarov case, as this step does impact on the stability in the region.

“However, I believe that the NATO Secretary General’s statement was not clear enough. I do hope that he will give rougher estimations in Azerbaijan on Saturday, in particular during the meeting with the Azerbaijani President. In addition, Azerbaijan currently is not an adequate partner for peace talks,” he added.

 As the agency informed earlier, during his upcoming meeting in Baku with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen will express his concerns, which are very clear, Rasmussen himself stated this Thursday during his joint briefing with Armenia’s President Serzh Sargsyan.

“During my meeting in Azerbaijan I will convey to Azerbaijan’s president my message, which is very simple and apparent. I’m truly concerned by the granting pardon to Ramil Safarov. What occurred eight years ago was a crime, and it must not be glorified. I will convey this message tomorrow to Azerbaijan’s president,” Anders Fogh Rasmussen stated.  

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.