The Hungarian government has caused an international scandal by sending home a nationalist Azerbaijani soldier who had been convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for brutally murdering an Armenian soldier in Budapest in 2004. This unscrupulous decision done in the hope of securing financial support might not only destroy friendship with Armenia, but might even rekindle the frozen conflict in the Caucasus. The Hungarian government apparently does not care about these consequences.
The feeling of outrage and shame is hardly affected by the uncertainty of whether the government knew in advance that the criminal sentenced to life imprisonment would be welcomed as a hero in Baku, or truly made a miscalculation and falsely believed the promise of an authoritarian regime. In order to clarify the truth and to identify those responsible, it is necessary to set up a parliamentary committee of inquiry, as was done after a scandal ensued from the sale of arms to Croatia after the regime-change in Hungary.
The “axe-gate” scandal also demonstrates the serious failure of the Hungarian government’s “adventurer policy” of moving away from the West and opening up to the East without any principles. For the past two long years, many political steps of the Orbán government have essentially contradicted the European Union’s value system. That is why we are looking forward to the position of the EU Council of Foreign Ministers as well as to the definite, fast action and investigation of the European Parliament regarding this unprecedented case.
Budapest, 3 September 2012
