The incident on Ramil Safarov’s extradition and pardon in Azerbaijan mustn’t cast shadow on Armenia-NATO relations, REGNUM news agency reports referring to Serzh Sargsyan’s words during the press conference with NATO chief secretary Anders Fog Rasmussen in Yerevan.
As the head of the state noted the framework document of NATO program “Partnership for the sake of peace” says that the protection of the main rights of people and the establishment of peace by democratic means are the main values of partnership.
“Unfortunately we witnessed a case of brutally violating these principles in the frames of the program “Partnership for the sake of peace”, which is sure not to cast shadow on NATO-Armenia relations. The murder of Armenian officer Gurgen Margaryan in 2004 was horrifying.”- announced Sargsyan.
After the verdict reached in 2006, it seemed like justice wan, but what occurred on August 31 was a challenge to people with healthy logic, added Serzh Sargsyan. According to his words Ilham Aliyev’s decision was a pardon, but as it turned to be a justification as afterwards he was promoted in rank and was paid the accumulated salary. ‘
“Azerbaijan turned itself into the sponsor of the criminal. It is unacceptable as it seriously hurts the aims of the program “Partnership for the sake of peace” and threatens peace in Transcaucasia. In such situation nobody has a moral right to keep silence.” – noted the president of Armenia. Serzh Sargsyan finds the actions of Hungarian Embassy unacceptable who is sure to have been aware of plans on Safarov.
“We have warned our partners that formulations on Nagorno Karabakh conflict that doesn’t reflect the essence of the issue are dangerous, because they are first of all encouraging the destructive policy of Azerbaijan. This very polite behavior became the cause of such cynic Azerbaijani actions,” – concluded Sargsyan.
As Regnum informed earlier on August 31 the Azerbaijani officer Ramil Safarov sentenced to life-imprisonment for killing an Armenian officer in 2004 during NATO trainings in Hungary was extradited to Azerbaijan. Afterwards the Azerbaijani president gifted him pardon and promoted to the rank of major. On this occasion the president of RA Serzh Sargsyan convened an emergency session of National security service and consultation with ambassadors and announced of stopping diplomatic relations with Hungary.
