Ukraine’s former Ambassador to Armenia, Alexander Bozhko, supports Armenia’s decision to suspend diplomatic relations with Hungary over the latter’s extradition of Ramil Safarov to Azerbaijan, Analitika.at.ua reports.  

“As someone who knows the South Caucasus region well and as a diplomat, I support Armenia’s decision as a protest against that country’s actual release of a murderer,” he said.

“Severing diplomatic ties is an extreme step in international practice, but this is that case when Armenia had no alternative. That very same right was brazenly, demonstratively violated by hiding behind international references. [And] Not counting mankind’s age-old principle of compensating for an evil deed,” Bozhko remarked.     

As Armenian News-NEWS.am reported earlier, Armenia’s President Serzh Sargsyan convened, on Friday evening, a special consultation with the chiefs of diplomatic missions of UN-member states that are accredited in Armenia, and the heads of international organizations that function in the country. During the meeting it was informed that Armenia decided to suspend its diplomatic relations with Hungary for the latter’s extradition of Ramil Safarov to Azerbaijan

Ramil Safarov, a lieutenant in the Azerbaijani military, was extradited on Friday 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.

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.