YEREVAN. – In connection with Ramil Safarov’s extradition to Azerbaijan, where he was granted pardon, Armenia is not attending the CIS Internal Affairs Ministers’ Council sessions, which kicked off Friday in the Azerbaijani capital, Baku.  

Considering the fact that the Council’s chairmanship is being transferred to Azerbaijani Minister of Internal Affairs Ramil Usubov, the Armenian party will boycott the Council’s sessions, Armenia’s Police informed Armenian News-NEWS.am. 

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.