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OSCE DECRIES AZERBAIJAN-ARMENIA TENSIONS
By JIM HEINTZ
Associated Press Online
September 3, 2012 Monday 7:03 PM GMT
International negotiators say Azerbaijan's pardoning of a military
officer who murdered an Armenian officer has harmed attempts to
establish peace between the countries.
Azerbaijan in turn strongly defended the move, saying the pardon
of Ramil Safarov is a consequence of Armenian occupation of a part
of Azerbaijan.
The Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan and some adjacent territory
has been under the control of Armenian troops and local ethnic Armenian
forces since a 1994 cease-fire ended a six-year war that killed an
estimated 30,000 people and drove about 1 million from their homes.
Negotiators from Russia, the United States and France under the
auspices of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe
have led efforts since then to find a resolution to the conflict,
but with little visible result.
The tensions rose sharply last week after Hungary repatriated Safarov,
who had been sentenced to life imprisonment for the 2004 axe murder
of Armenian Lt. Gurgen Makarian while both were in Hungary on a NATO
language-training course.
Hungary said Azerbaijan promised that Safarov would serve his sentence
in a local prison, but he received a presidential pardon hours after
returning and later was promoted from lieutenant to major.
An outraged Armenian President Serge Sarkisian broke diplomatic
relations with Hungary and said Armenia was willing to resume fighting
against Azerbaijan.
Reigniting the frozen conflict would be of serious concern to Russia,
which borders Azerbaijan and has a military base in Armenia, as well as
the West. A major pipeline through Azerbaijan transports Caspian Sea
oil to Turkey and both countries have potential strategic importance
because they border Iran.
The co-chairs of the "Minsk Group," the troika negotiating on
Nagorno-Karabakh, met in Paris with the Armenian foreign minister on
Sunday and his Azerbaijani counterpart on Monday.
The co-chairs "expressed their deep concern and regret for the damage
the pardon and any attempts to glorify the crime have done to the
peace process and trust between the sides," an OSCE statement said.
Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mamedyarov also spoke by telephone
with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State William Burns on Monday, ministry
spokesman Elman Abdullayev said.
Mamedyarov "underlined that the question of Ramil Safarov must not be
looked at outside the context of the fact of the occupation, because
it is a consequence of this Armenian aggression," Abdullayev said.
Armenian Foreign Minister Edvard Nalbandian in turn said the
"international society cannot tolerate the continuation of Azerbaijan's
adventurist policy under the cover of the negotiations process."
Separately from the OSCE statement, Russia's Foreign Ministry condemned
both Hungary's release of Safarov and Azerbaijan's pardon of him.
"We believe that these actions of Azerbaijani as well as Hungarian
authorities contradict internationally brokered efforts, of the
OSCE's Minsk group in particular, to ease tensions in the region,"
the ministry said.
The White House also criticized the decision to free Safarov.
During his trial in Budapest, Safarov claimed that the Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict was at the root of his actions and that he killed Markarian
while the victim was sleeping after the Armenian repeatedly provoked
and ridiculed him.
---
Aida Sultanova in Baku, Azerbaijan, and Avet Demourian in Yerevan,
Armenia, contributed to this report
By JIM HEINTZ
Associated Press Online
September 3, 2012 Monday 7:03 PM GMT
International negotiators say Azerbaijan's pardoning of a military
officer who murdered an Armenian officer has harmed attempts to
establish peace between the countries.
Azerbaijan in turn strongly defended the move, saying the pardon
of Ramil Safarov is a consequence of Armenian occupation of a part
of Azerbaijan.
The Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan and some adjacent territory
has been under the control of Armenian troops and local ethnic Armenian
forces since a 1994 cease-fire ended a six-year war that killed an
estimated 30,000 people and drove about 1 million from their homes.
Negotiators from Russia, the United States and France under the
auspices of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe
have led efforts since then to find a resolution to the conflict,
but with little visible result.
The tensions rose sharply last week after Hungary repatriated Safarov,
who had been sentenced to life imprisonment for the 2004 axe murder
of Armenian Lt. Gurgen Makarian while both were in Hungary on a NATO
language-training course.
Hungary said Azerbaijan promised that Safarov would serve his sentence
in a local prison, but he received a presidential pardon hours after
returning and later was promoted from lieutenant to major.
An outraged Armenian President Serge Sarkisian broke diplomatic
relations with Hungary and said Armenia was willing to resume fighting
against Azerbaijan.
Reigniting the frozen conflict would be of serious concern to Russia,
which borders Azerbaijan and has a military base in Armenia, as well as
the West. A major pipeline through Azerbaijan transports Caspian Sea
oil to Turkey and both countries have potential strategic importance
because they border Iran.
The co-chairs of the "Minsk Group," the troika negotiating on
Nagorno-Karabakh, met in Paris with the Armenian foreign minister on
Sunday and his Azerbaijani counterpart on Monday.
The co-chairs "expressed their deep concern and regret for the damage
the pardon and any attempts to glorify the crime have done to the
peace process and trust between the sides," an OSCE statement said.
Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mamedyarov also spoke by telephone
with U.S. Deputy Secretary of State William Burns on Monday, ministry
spokesman Elman Abdullayev said.
Mamedyarov "underlined that the question of Ramil Safarov must not be
looked at outside the context of the fact of the occupation, because
it is a consequence of this Armenian aggression," Abdullayev said.
Armenian Foreign Minister Edvard Nalbandian in turn said the
"international society cannot tolerate the continuation of Azerbaijan's
adventurist policy under the cover of the negotiations process."
Separately from the OSCE statement, Russia's Foreign Ministry condemned
both Hungary's release of Safarov and Azerbaijan's pardon of him.
"We believe that these actions of Azerbaijani as well as Hungarian
authorities contradict internationally brokered efforts, of the
OSCE's Minsk group in particular, to ease tensions in the region,"
the ministry said.
The White House also criticized the decision to free Safarov.
During his trial in Budapest, Safarov claimed that the Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict was at the root of his actions and that he killed Markarian
while the victim was sleeping after the Armenian repeatedly provoked
and ridiculed him.
---
Aida Sultanova in Baku, Azerbaijan, and Avet Demourian in Yerevan,
Armenia, contributed to this report