South Caucasus

The fact that Safarov.s crime was committed on European territory in the context of an event to which both victim and culprit were guests of NATO means this case cannot be seen in the context of Armenian-Azerbaijani relations alone.

"The Strasbourg Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced People should not be abused for political purpose," European Parliament President Martin Schulz made the following statement after Ramil Safarov was pardoned by Azerbaijan's President.

Critical stage has come in the Karabakh negotiating process because of Ramil Safarov's pardoning, political expert, Stepan Grigoryan, said at today's press-conference.

The Armenian National Assembly has launched debates on a draft statement on extradition of Ramil Safarov, who killed Armenian officer Gurgen Margaryan, by the Hungarian authorities and his pardoning by the Azerbaijani president.

A big protest action is being held in front of the Hungarian Parliament building in Budapest Tuesday evening.

This is a black week for those who are seeking a peaceful settlement of the long-running Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict, Thomas de Waal, senior associate of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington DC, says in his BBC article concerning Ramil Safarov, an Azeri officer sentenced by a Hungarian court to life in jail for brutally killing an Armenian in Budapest in 2004 but recently extradited to his home country and pardoned by the local authorities.

Ramil Safarov is part of a big game of the Azeri-Turkish authorities, a game where he is doomed to die, Arkady Ter-Tadevosyan, hero of the Nagorno-Karabakh war, said during a press- conference on Tuesday.

If extradition and pardoning of the Azerbaiani officer Ramil Safarov, who decapitated Armenian officer Gurgen Margaryan, is not the result of a criminal collusion of Hungary with Azerbaijan, Budapest must recognize independence of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic, says the statement disseminated by the Office of the ex-president of Armenia Robert Kocharyan, on September 4.

The parliamentary group of the Heritage party has introduces a bill on recognition of Nagorno-Karabakh Republic.