YEREVAN. – The 127th Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) Assembly was held in Quebec City, Canada, Irates De Facto newspaper reports.   

“[Former Minister of Economics and Trade] Karen Chsmarityan and [the coalition Government’s junior member Orinats Yerkir (Rule of Law) Party (RLP) National Assembly Faction leader] Heghine Bisharyan attended the [IPU] Assembly from Armenia.

During the discussion of special matters, the Azerbaijani delegate considered it as his sacred duty to inform the delegates from 162 countries that ‘thirty-thousand Armenians live in Azerbaijan today, [and] Azerbaijan treats them very well,’ and that the Armenians have occupied twenty percent of the Azerbaijani territory.    

Heghine Bisharyan delivered an address in response and informed those present that no Armenian can live in that Azerbaijan whose citizen kills a sleeping man with an axe at night [and] at the heart of Europe, [and] in that Azerbaijan where the killer is made a hero at the level of the country’s first [official] person. ‘There are no Armenians living in Azerbaijan [today], they live in Nagorno-Karabakh [NK], and today NK is an independent and a free country[, Bisharyan noted.’        

Following her address, Hungary’s delegation approached the Armenian delegation, apologized in connection with their government’s extradition of [Ramil] Safarov, and proposed to restore the parliamentary-level ties with Armenia,” Irates De Facto writes.  

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.    

Ramil Safarov’s pardoning is condemned by virtually all international organizations.