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YEREVAN, BAKU ENGAGE IN WAR OF WORDS AFTER PARDON
Hurriyet Daily News
Sept 4 2012
Turkey
Armenia has upped the ante against Azerbaijan in the wake of President
İlham Aliyev's decision to pardon and promote a soldier convicted
of murdering an Armenian counterpart, warning its Caspian foe that
"it is ready for war."
"We don't want a war, but if we have to, we will fight and win. We
are not afraid of killers, even if they enjoy the protection of the
head of state," Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan said in a statement
late on Sept. 2. "They [Azerbaijanis] have been warned."
Azerbaijani President İlham Aliyev immediately pardoned Ramil Safarov
after he was extradited from Hungary, where he had been serving a
life sentence for hacking Armenian officer Gurgen Markarian to death
with an ax in 2004. Safarov was also promoted to the rank of major,
given a house and eight years' worth of back-pay after returning home
to a hero's welcome, in defiance of assurances from Baku to Budapest
that he would serve out his term in Azerbaijan.
Russia concerned
Hungary summoned Azerbaijan's ambassador to protest at Baku's decision
after earlier saying it had been assured Safarov would serve out
his term.
"Hungary finds it unacceptable and condemns the pardoning of Ramil
Safarov," Foreign Ministry State Secretary Zsolt Nemeth told Ambassador
Vilayat Guliyev.
Russia, which is part of the Organization for Security and Cooperation
in Europe (OSCE) Minsk Group that is mediating in negotiations to find
a peaceful solution to the Karabakh conflict, expressed "deep concern"
over the extradition and pardon.
"We believe that these actions of the Azerbaijanis, as well as
the Hungarian authorities, go against the efforts agreed at an
international level primarily through the OSCE Minsk Group aimed at
reducing tension in the region," Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman
Alexander Lukashevich said in a statement.
The EU said Baku and Yerevan should refrain from exacerbating the
dispute.
"We call on Azerbaijan and Armenia to exercise restraint on the ground
and in public statements in order to prevent any kind of escalation
of this situation," Maja Kocijancic, a spokeswoman for EU foreign
policy chief Catherine Ashton, told a news conference in Brussels.
Armenia and Azerbaijan are locked in a long-running conflict over
the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, where they fought a war in
the 1990s. The conflict left around 30,000 people dead and displaced
hundreds of thousands.
Safarov hacked Markarian to death at a military academy in Budapest
where the servicemen were attending English-language courses organized
by NATO. His lawyers claimed in court that he was traumatized because
some of his relatives had been killed during the war with Armenian
forces and alleged that Markarian had insulted Azerbaijan.
September/04/2012
From: A. Papazian
Hurriyet Daily News
Sept 4 2012
Turkey
Armenia has upped the ante against Azerbaijan in the wake of President
İlham Aliyev's decision to pardon and promote a soldier convicted
of murdering an Armenian counterpart, warning its Caspian foe that
"it is ready for war."
"We don't want a war, but if we have to, we will fight and win. We
are not afraid of killers, even if they enjoy the protection of the
head of state," Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan said in a statement
late on Sept. 2. "They [Azerbaijanis] have been warned."
Azerbaijani President İlham Aliyev immediately pardoned Ramil Safarov
after he was extradited from Hungary, where he had been serving a
life sentence for hacking Armenian officer Gurgen Markarian to death
with an ax in 2004. Safarov was also promoted to the rank of major,
given a house and eight years' worth of back-pay after returning home
to a hero's welcome, in defiance of assurances from Baku to Budapest
that he would serve out his term in Azerbaijan.
Russia concerned
Hungary summoned Azerbaijan's ambassador to protest at Baku's decision
after earlier saying it had been assured Safarov would serve out
his term.
"Hungary finds it unacceptable and condemns the pardoning of Ramil
Safarov," Foreign Ministry State Secretary Zsolt Nemeth told Ambassador
Vilayat Guliyev.
Russia, which is part of the Organization for Security and Cooperation
in Europe (OSCE) Minsk Group that is mediating in negotiations to find
a peaceful solution to the Karabakh conflict, expressed "deep concern"
over the extradition and pardon.
"We believe that these actions of the Azerbaijanis, as well as
the Hungarian authorities, go against the efforts agreed at an
international level primarily through the OSCE Minsk Group aimed at
reducing tension in the region," Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman
Alexander Lukashevich said in a statement.
The EU said Baku and Yerevan should refrain from exacerbating the
dispute.
"We call on Azerbaijan and Armenia to exercise restraint on the ground
and in public statements in order to prevent any kind of escalation
of this situation," Maja Kocijancic, a spokeswoman for EU foreign
policy chief Catherine Ashton, told a news conference in Brussels.
Armenia and Azerbaijan are locked in a long-running conflict over
the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, where they fought a war in
the 1990s. The conflict left around 30,000 people dead and displaced
hundreds of thousands.
Safarov hacked Markarian to death at a military academy in Budapest
where the servicemen were attending English-language courses organized
by NATO. His lawyers claimed in court that he was traumatized because
some of his relatives had been killed during the war with Armenian
forces and alleged that Markarian had insulted Azerbaijan.
September/04/2012
From: A. Papazian