NATO HAS joined the European Union, the United States and Russia in condemning Azerbaijan for pardoning the killer of an Armenian soldier, and has urged the ex-Soviet neighbours to defuse rising tension in the volatile south Caucasus.
Ramil Safarov was sent home from jail in Hungary last week and was pardoned by the Azeri president, promoted to army major, given an apartment and awarded the pay he had lost since hacking to death with an axe Armenian officer Gurgen Markarian in Budapest in 2004 – all but decapitating the officer while he slept.
Armenia cut diplomatic ties with Budapest in protest at a decision that Hungarian opposition parties claim was linked to Azerbaijan’s reported interest in lending billions of euro to their country.
Armenia and Azerbaijan are still technically at war following a 1988-1994 conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, a mostly ethnic-Armenian region inside Azerbaijan’s official borders. Tens of thousands of people died in the war and about one million were displaced.
Azeri and Armenian soldiers regularly exchange deadly fire across a ceasefire line monitored by the 56-nation Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe. The OSCE also brokers peace talks through its so-called Minsk Group, co-chaired by Russia, the US and France.
“The act he committed in 2004 was a terrible crime and should not be glorified,” Nato secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen said yesterday in Yerevan. “The pardon damages trust and doesn’t contribute to the peace process . . . There must be no return to conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan . . . concrete steps must be taken to promote regional co-operation and reconciliation.” .
Armenian president Serzh Sargsyan warned that “Azerbaijan’s shameful act seriously endangers the security of the entire south Caucasus”, referring to a region that borders Iran and Turkey and includes Georgia and its own two Russian-backed breakaway regions. Earlier this week, Mr Sargsyan said his country would “fight and win” if war erupted again.
Hungary has accused Azerbaijan of reneging on assurances that Safarov would serve the rest of his life sentence in his homeland.
US, Russian and French envoys met the Armenian and Azeri foreign ministers. “They expressed their deep concern and regret for the damage the pardon and any attempts to glorify the crime have done to the peace process . . .” the OSCE said.
