Hungarian Foreign Ministry expresses protest to Azerbaijan against pardoning Safarov

• Monday, September 3, 11:32

Zsolt Nemeth, Parliamentary State Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, asked Vilayat Guliyev, Azerbaijan's Ambassador to Hungary, into his office on September 2 to inform Ambassador Guliyev about the position of the Government of Hungary, the official site of the Hungarian Government reports.
Hungary considers it unacceptable and expresses utter disapproval at the fact that Ramil Safarov, who was sentenced for manslaughter by Hungarian court, received pardon from the President of Azerbaijan.

State Secretary Zsolt Nemeth has pointed out that the measures made by Azerbaijan are contrary to the relevant rules of international law and blatantly contradict the promise officially confirmed by Azerbaijan earlier that Safarov would continue to serve his sentence in Azerbaijan.

The Parliamentary State Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs handed over a diplomatic note to the Ambassadorof Azerbaijan: "The Government of Hungary was astonished to receive the news about the decision of the Azerbaijani side granting pardon to Ramil Sahib Safarov, who was sentenced to life imprisonment for manslaughter in 2006. Hungary refuses to accept and condemns the action of Azerbaijan, which contradicts the relevant rules of international law and sharply contrasts the undertaking of the Azerbaijani side in this matter, confirmed by the Deputy Minister of Justice of the Republic
of Azerbaijan in his letter XX-NBSKFO/3743/4/2012 of 15 August 2012 addressed to the Ministry of Public Administration and Justice of Hungary. In this letter the Republic of Azerbaijan quoting the relevant international Convention undertook that the sentenced person will serve the remaining part of his prison sentence in the Republic of Azerbaijan and may be released on conditional parole only after he has served at least 25 years of his sentence".

Earlier 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 and give him the rank of Major.

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict broke out on February 28 1988 in the Azerbaijani Sumgait with massacre of Armenians as a peculiar response of Azerbaijanis to the peaceful demand of the Nagorno-Karabakh autonomous Region, part of the Azerbaijani SSR, to unite with the Armenian SSR. This resulted in other pogroms of Armenians in Baku, Kirovabad and other regions of Azerbaijan populated with Armenians.  In 1991  Azerbaijan unleashed war against peaceful populations of Nagorno-Karabakh, expulsing ethnic Armenians from the territory of Azerbaijan. Dozens of thousands of peaceful residents on both parties were killed in the military actions, and hundreds of thousands were left homeless and have become refugees. In 1994 in Bishkek in mediation of the OSCE MG, the NKR, Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a Protocol on Ceasefire that is observed more or less so far. 

Since 1992 the OSCE Minsk Group represented by co-chairs from Russia, U.S.  and France has been mediating in resolution of the conflict unleashed by Azerbaijan in 1988. At present the peace process is based on the Madrid Principles suggested by the OSCE MG in 2007 in Madrid and renovated in 2009.