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Axe Murder Complicates EU-Azerbaijan Love Affair

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  • Axe Murder Complicates EU-Azerbaijan Love Affair

    AXE MURDER COMPLICATES EU-AZERBAIJAN LOVE AFFAIR

    EUobserver.com
    September 3, 2012 Monday 7:26 PM GMT

    EU countries have criticised "strategic partner" Azerbaijan for making
    a national hero out of an axe-murderer.

    On 19 February 2004 during a Nato seminar at a military school in
    Budapest, he walked into the bedroom of a sleeping Armenian soldier,
    hit him 16 times with an axe and partly decapitated his dead body.

    On 31 August this year, Hungary put Azerbaijani lieutenant Ramil
    Safarov on a plane to Baku where President Ilham Aliyev pardoned him,
    promoted him to the rank of major and gave him eight years of back pay.

    Speaking in the context of a 20-year-long ethnic conflict between
    Armenia and Azerbaijan, a senior Azerbaijani official the same day
    told state media that Safarov had "defended his country's honour and
    dignity" in butchering the 25-year-old victim.

    The official added that Aliyev clinched the deal personally with
    Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban in Baku in July, fuelling
    speculation - and denials - in Hungary that Orban extradited Safarov
    in return for a promise that Azerbaijan will buy Hungarian bonds.

    The EU on Monday (3 September) joined Russia and the US in criticising
    Aliyev's behaviour.

    Its foreign relations spokeswoman, Maja Kocjanic, told press
    in Brussels: "We are particularly concerned with the impact the
    developments might have on the wider region."

    She later told EUobserver that the EU foreign service is drafting
    a written statement and that EU foreign ministers might discuss the
    subject at their next meeting, due in Cyprus on Friday.

    Russia's foreign minister earlier on Monday said he is "deeply
    concerned" and that the actions "run counter" to peace efforts.

    The White House back on 31 August said it had conveyed its
    "disappointment" to Aliyev.

    Meanwhile, Hungary has been the most energetic in condemning the
    affair.

    It summoned Azerbaijan's ambassador for an official telling-off in the
    Hungarian capital and it leaked a letter from the Azerbaijani ministry
    of justice promising that Safarov would stay in jail. Hungarian spin
    also includes saying that it is no worse than the UK, which sent
    Lockerbie plane bomber Abdelbaset Megrahi back to Libya in 2009.

    Nobody in Armenia, at the least, believes Hungary, however.

    Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan last week severed diplomatic ties
    with the EU country and said it had broken promises made "just a
    few days ago" that the axe-killer would stay in place. "There are
    no doubts they were well informed about what was going to happen
    [with Safarov's pardon]," an Armenian diplomat told this website.

    The developments are unwelcome for all parties involved.

    Hungary was already trying to improve its image as one of the sick
    men of Europe after Orban's recent attempt to gain political control
    of the central bank, courts and media.

    The EU and Russia's mild rebukes come amid their competing efforts to
    get Azerbaijani gas flowing into EU-bound or Russia-bound pipelines
    in the next few years.

    The US rebuke comes amid its aim to use Azerbaijan to help withdraw
    its soldiers from Afghanistan in 2014.

    EU Council President Herman Van Rompuy went to Baku and shook hands
    with Aliyev in July. But Van Rompuy had nothing to say on the subject
    on Monday. EU energy commissioner Gunther Oettinger visited Baku this
    weekend, but also said nothing.

    "This actually embarasses countries which are engaged with Azerbaijan
    and makes it harder for the West to look the other way. It's
    [glorification of Safarov] is so over the top, it actually reminds me
    of North Korea and Turkmenistan under [former leader] Turkmenbashi,"
    Richard Giragosian, a Yerevan-based analyst who used to advise the
    Pentagon and the CIA, told this website.

    "Even [Azerbaijan's main ally] Turkey is embarassed and put off,"
    he added.

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