Political expert: Karabakh peace talks have entered a new phase at suggestion of EU

• Thursday, September 13, 17:07

 The Karabakh peace talks have entered a new phase, political expert Levon Shirinyan told media, Thursday.

He said that the new realities around the Karabakh peace process are the result of extradition and pardon of Azerbaijani murderer Ramil Safarov, and the EU, as the expert thinks, could not be unaware of that, for Hungary is a EU member-state. In this context, Shirinyan supposes that the OSCE Minsk Group will not exist de-facto in the nearest future.

"If the international structures fail to impose sanctions on Azerbaijan for pardoning Safarov, it will mean that all their concerns have been nothing but formality," Shirinyan said.

He thinks that the new realities around the Karabakh conflict, particularly, Safavor's pardon, may lead to resumption of military actions. The only thing Armenia should do in such situation is to mobilize its armed forces and rely on itself, as practice shows, the expert said.

On August 31 the Armenian authorities adopted a decision to suspend diplomatic relations and official contacts with Hungary.  President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan made public the decision at a special meeting with the heads of diplomatic missions on Friday after the Hungarian authorities extradited Azeri officer Ramil Safarov, who was sentenced by a Hungarian court to life in jail for killing sleeping Armenian officer Gurgen Margaryan with an axe in Budapest in 2004. Both the officers were undergoing an English language course under the NATO PfP program. The same day after Safarov's extradition, Azeri
President Ilham Aliyev decreed to pardon the criminal.  Hungarian mass media report that Azerbaijan pledged to buy government bonds in Hungary in the amount of 2-3 billion EUR.