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A serious error
Saudi Gazette
Sept 5 2012
Saudi Arabia
Last Updated : Thursday, September 06, 2012 1:25 AM
There is no love lost between Azerbaijan and Armenia. At the heart
of their enmity lies the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, which
sits within Azeri territory. Armenia maintains that its largely ethnic
Armenian population there makes it part of the country. It fought a
war in 1994 which drove out the Azerbaijan police and army.
Azerbaijan, which for its part, has an enclave in Armenia with,
however, a border to Iran, continues to demand the return of the
Nagorno-Karabakh enclave.
Passions run deep on both sides. So deep indeed, that in 2004, an
Azeri army officer, in Hungary on a NATO English-language course, took
an ax to an Armenian officer on the same program and killed him. A
Hungarian court subsequently jailed the murderer, Ramil Safarov,
for life. However, the government in Baku succeeded this summer in
persuading the Hungarians to release Safarov, on condition that he
would serve the rest of his sentence in his home country. Yet, no
sooner had the officer stepped off the plane in the Azeri capital,
than he was given a presidential pardon, a promotion in rank and
eight years in back salary.
There have been angry protests in the Armenian capital outside the
Hungarian embassy. The Hungarians are also clearly deeply embarrassed
and their view will be shared by fellow EU member states. Put bluntly,
this is a spectacular act of bad faith by Azerbaijan's president,
Ilham Aliyev, which has the potential to poison relations between
his country and the EU.
Whatever are the two nations' claims of right and wrong in the
Nagorno-Karabakh dispute (International law appears to favor Azeri
rights over the territory), what is at the heart of this current
issue is a case of common murder. Nothing can excuse what Safarov
did. His life sentence was undoubtedly fair. The Hungarian government
allowed itself to be convinced that the murderer would complete his
punishment in his own country, where it would be easy for relatives
to visit him and where indeed, he would be back among his own people.
No one in Budapest would have imagined that solemn assurances given
by another government would be dishonored so quickly in such an
outrageous way. There is nothing heroic about cold-blooded murder
and the lionization of this convicted killer by his government leaves
an extremely bitter taste in the mouth. The people of Azerbaijan who
have been hailing Safarov as a hero, should consider how they would
be feeling now, if the position had been reversed. Supposing it had
been the Armenian officer who had murdered Safarov, been jailed for
life, then released into Armenian custody and promptly pardoned,
promoted and paid?
This regrettable incident is not about deep national rivalries but
about the rule of law. It is also about the trustworthiness of a
sovereign government. In demonstrating its lack of respect for
the primacy of law and the emptiness of its promises, Aliyev's
administration has done itself no favors whatsoever and may yet
find that it pays a high price for its behavior. It has certainly
done nothing to advance its case that Nagorno-Karabakh is part of
Azerbaijan.
http://www.saudigazette.com.sa/index.cfm?method=home.regcon&contentid=20120906135 181
Saudi Gazette
Sept 5 2012
Saudi Arabia
Last Updated : Thursday, September 06, 2012 1:25 AM
There is no love lost between Azerbaijan and Armenia. At the heart
of their enmity lies the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, which
sits within Azeri territory. Armenia maintains that its largely ethnic
Armenian population there makes it part of the country. It fought a
war in 1994 which drove out the Azerbaijan police and army.
Azerbaijan, which for its part, has an enclave in Armenia with,
however, a border to Iran, continues to demand the return of the
Nagorno-Karabakh enclave.
Passions run deep on both sides. So deep indeed, that in 2004, an
Azeri army officer, in Hungary on a NATO English-language course, took
an ax to an Armenian officer on the same program and killed him. A
Hungarian court subsequently jailed the murderer, Ramil Safarov,
for life. However, the government in Baku succeeded this summer in
persuading the Hungarians to release Safarov, on condition that he
would serve the rest of his sentence in his home country. Yet, no
sooner had the officer stepped off the plane in the Azeri capital,
than he was given a presidential pardon, a promotion in rank and
eight years in back salary.
There have been angry protests in the Armenian capital outside the
Hungarian embassy. The Hungarians are also clearly deeply embarrassed
and their view will be shared by fellow EU member states. Put bluntly,
this is a spectacular act of bad faith by Azerbaijan's president,
Ilham Aliyev, which has the potential to poison relations between
his country and the EU.
Whatever are the two nations' claims of right and wrong in the
Nagorno-Karabakh dispute (International law appears to favor Azeri
rights over the territory), what is at the heart of this current
issue is a case of common murder. Nothing can excuse what Safarov
did. His life sentence was undoubtedly fair. The Hungarian government
allowed itself to be convinced that the murderer would complete his
punishment in his own country, where it would be easy for relatives
to visit him and where indeed, he would be back among his own people.
No one in Budapest would have imagined that solemn assurances given
by another government would be dishonored so quickly in such an
outrageous way. There is nothing heroic about cold-blooded murder
and the lionization of this convicted killer by his government leaves
an extremely bitter taste in the mouth. The people of Azerbaijan who
have been hailing Safarov as a hero, should consider how they would
be feeling now, if the position had been reversed. Supposing it had
been the Armenian officer who had murdered Safarov, been jailed for
life, then released into Armenian custody and promptly pardoned,
promoted and paid?
This regrettable incident is not about deep national rivalries but
about the rule of law. It is also about the trustworthiness of a
sovereign government. In demonstrating its lack of respect for
the primacy of law and the emptiness of its promises, Aliyev's
administration has done itself no favors whatsoever and may yet
find that it pays a high price for its behavior. It has certainly
done nothing to advance its case that Nagorno-Karabakh is part of
Azerbaijan.
http://www.saudigazette.com.sa/index.cfm?method=home.regcon&contentid=20120906135 181