Safarov Outrage - International Press
Mihran Keheyian [mailto:mkeheyian@gmail.com]
Sent: 04 September 2012 22:52
Subject: Hungary Red-Faced after Azerbaijan Frees Axe-Murderer; Armenia Considers Recognizing Nagorno Karabakh's Independence; What to Do with a Government Welcoming Home an Axe-Murderer?
Subject: Hungary Red-Faced after Azerbaijan Frees Axe-Murderer; Armenia Considers Recognizing Nagorno Karabakh's Independence; What to Do with a Government Welcoming Home an Axe-Murderer?
Ex-communist Europe
Hungary, Armenia and the axe-murderer
Blunder in Budapest
Sep 4th 2012, 14:44 by A.L.B. | BUDAPEST
THE return to home and freedom of Ramil Safarov, an Azeri military officer and convicted murderer, has prompted one of central Europe's biggest diplomatic storms. It has pulled in Russia, America and the European Union, and led to a new war of words in one of the world’s most volatile regions.
Safarov used an axe to murder a sleeping fellow student, an Armenian officer called Gurgen Margarjan, while both men were at a NATO English-language course in Budapest in 2004. Safarov justified himself by referring to Armenian atrocities against Azerbaijan in the conflict of 1988-94. He told the court that Lieutenant Margarjan, an Armenian, had taunted him about the contested region of Nagorno-Karabakh from where he was a refugee.
Hungary sent Safarov home, it says, on the understanding that he would serve the rest of his sentence in prison there. But on arrival in Baku, he was immediately pardoned, hailed as a national hero and promoted to major.
Armenia has reacted with fury and has severed diplomatic relations with Budapest. Angry protestors burnt the Hungarian flag in Yerevan, the Armenian capital, and pelted the consulate with tomatoes. Serzh Sarkisian, the president of Armenia, said the country was ready to fight if need be. “We don't want a war, but if we have to, we will fight and win. We are not afraid of killers, even if they enjoy the protection of the head of state."
Patrick Ventrell, spokesman for the U.S. State Department, said that the United States was “extremely troubled” by the pardon of Safarov and would be seeking an explanation from both Budapest and Baku.
Russia, which has been deeply involved in efforts to ease relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan, said that the actions of the Hungarian and Azerbaijani governments “contradict internationally brokered efforts” to bring peace to the region.
Hungary condemned the decision to release Safarov and said it had been misled by the Azerbaijan government. Hungarian officials said they had received assurances from Azerbaijan that Safarov would be released on parole only after serving at least 25 years.
The Hungarian media has reported that Azerbaijan has been pressing Hungary to release Safarov since his conviction. Many scent a dirty deal behind the scenes, as this poston Hungarian Spectrum, a liberal blog, outlines. The main theory is that Azerbaijan had promised to buy state bonds from Hungary in exchange for Safarov’s release.
Hungary needs the money. It has been in protracted and so far fruitless negotiations with the IMF and the European Union for a stand-by credit arrangement. The Hungarian government is actively seeking other potential investment partners in Asia and the Middle East. Mr Orbán visited Azerbaijan in June.
Hungarian and Azeri officials dismissed such claims.
On one level, the diplomatic crisis is surprising. Hungary’s diplomats are usually smart, supple and well-informed. During the Libyan crisis, while most diplomats fled, the Hungarian embassy in Tripoli stayed open. By the end of the seven-month conflict Budapest was representing some fifty absent governments. Hungary brokered the release of four western journalists and even managed to get Talitha von Zam, a Dutch model and former girlfriend of one of Colonel Gaddafi’s sons, out of the war-zone.
But it seems that the Safarov affair was masterminded by Viktor Orbán, the prime minister, and Péter Szijjártó, the minister for external economic relations, rather than the foreign ministry.
The extradition also raises questions about the EU’s credibility. It has just pledged €19.5 million ($25m) to reform oil-rich Azerbaijan’s justice and migration systems. So far, Catherine Ashton, the EU High Representative, has expressed only atepid statement of “concern”.
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EU Council chief Van Rompuy was in Baku in July (Photo: consilium.europa.eu)
Axe murder complicates EU-Azerbaijan love affair
03.09.12 @ 19:26
BRUSSELS - EU countries have criticised "strategic partner" Azerbaijan for making a national hero out of an axe-murderer.
On 19 February 2004 during a Nato seminar at a military school in Budapest, he walked into the bedroom of a sleeping Armenian soldier, hit him 16 times with an axe and partly decapitated his dead body.
On 31 August this year, Hungary put Azerbaijani lieutenant Ramil Safarov on a plane to Baku where President Ilham Aliyev pardoned him, promoted him to the rank of major and gave him eight years of back pay.
Speaking in the context of a 20-year-long ethnic conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, a senior Azerbaijani official the same day told state media that Safarov had "defended his country's honour and dignity" in butchering the 25-year-old victim.
The official added that Aliyev clinched the deal personally with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban in Baku in July, fuelling speculation - and denials - in Hungary that Orban extradited Safarov in return for a promise that Azerbaijan will buy Hungarian bonds.
The EU on Monday (3 September) joined Russia and the US in criticising Aliyev's behaviour.
Its foreign relations spokeswoman, Maja Kocjanic, told press in Brussels: "We are particularly concerned with the impact the developments might have on the wider region."
She later told EUobserver that the EU foreign service is drafting a written statement and that EU foreign ministers might discuss the subject at their next meeting, due in Cyprus on Friday.
Russia's foreign ministry earlier on Monday said it was "deeply concerned" and that the actions "run counter" to peace efforts.
The White House back on 31 August said it had conveyed its "disappointment" to Aliyev.
For its part, Hungary has been the most active in condemning the affair.
It summoned Azerbaijan's ambassador for an official telling-off in the Hungarian capital and it leaked a letter from the Azerbaijani ministry of justice promising that Safarov would stay in jail. Hungarian spin also includes saying that it is no worse than the UK, which sent Lockerbie plane bomber Abdelbaset Megrahi back to Libya in 2009.
Nobody in Armenia, at the least, believes Hungary, however.
Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan last week severed diplomatic ties with the EU country and said it had broken promises made "just a few days ago" that the axe-killer would stay in place. "There are no doubts they were well informed about what was going to happen [with Safarov's pardon]," an Armenian diplomat told this website.
The developments are unwelcome for all parties involved.
Hungary was already trying to improve its image as one of the sick men of the EU after Orban's recent attempt to gain political control of the central bank, courts and media.
The EU and Russia's mild rebukes come amid their competing efforts to get Azerbaijani gas flowing into EU-bound or Russia-bound pipelines in the next few years.
The US rebuke comes amid its aim to use Azerbaijan to help withdraw its soldiers from Afghanistan in 2014.
EU Council President Herman Van Rompuy went to Baku and shook hands with Aliyev in July. But Van Rompuy had nothing to say on the subject on Monday. EU energy commissioner Gunther Oettinger visited Baku this weekend, but also said nothing.
"This actually embarasses countries which are engaged with Azerbaijan and makes it harder for the West to look the other way. It's [glorification of Safarov] is so over the top, it actually reminds me of North Korea and Turkmenistan under [former leader] Turkmenbashi," Richard Giragosian, a Yerevan-based analyst who used to advise the Pentagon and the CIA, told this website.
"Even [Azerbaijan's main ally] Turkey is embarassed and put off," he added.
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Armenia Considers Recognizing Nagorno Karabakh's Independence
September 4, 2012 - 11:32am
To Armenia, Azerbaijan's recent pardoning of Lieutenant Ramil Safarov, convicted of the 2004 axe murder of an Armenian army officer during a training in Budapest, was a slap in the face. Now, Armenia is contemplating a response that could take the two countries' angry dispute over Safarov into an entirely new dimension.
A bill was presented to the Armenian parliament on September 4 to recognize as an independent country the breakaway region of Nagorno Karabakh, the territory that was the cause of the 1988-1994 war between Armenia and Azerbaijan. No date has yet been scheduled for the vote.
Arguably, Armenia has long interacted with the de-facto government of Karabakh as if with an independent country -- if not an additional Armenian province -- but has refrained from making that position official.
Coming on the heels of warnings of war from Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan, a Karabakh native, the measure might well give outside observers pause.
The bill, though, is far from the enraged response of an isolated few. Armenia has severed diplomatic relations with Hungary, where Safarov had been serving life for the 2004 murder, for permitting Safarov's return to Azerbaijan, with demonstrations staged in Budapest and Yerevan, to boot.
Frustration over the international community's inability to take Azerbaijan down to size for the exoneration also appears to feed into the measure. In comments widely echoed by others, analyst Richard Giragosian on September 3 argued that "If this crisis continues with Azerbaijan acting so irresponsible, the Armenian government should consider recognizing the independence of Nagorno Karabakh or demanding others to do so."
Washington, Brussels, and Moscow, seen as the key outside actors for peace over the Karabakh conflict, have all condemned the pardoning. Budapest, for its part, denying reports that it was looking to Baku for a debt bailout, claims to be in a state of eye-batting shock at Safarov's exoneration.
But the words of censure do not appear to have had the intended effect on Baku.
Calling the US position on the case "baffling," Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov got on the phone with US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs William Burns to seek an explanation for Washington’s harsh criticism.
Azerbaijani officials, as well as many ordinary people, say that the atrocities committed by ethnic Armenians against ethnic Azeris in Karabakh and otherwise during the Karabakh war, fully justify the exoneration.
But quite a few Azerbaijanis say that Safarov needs a straitjacket or a prison, rather than freedom, promotion and an apartment in Baku.
As one Azerbaijani wrote in a blog post about the dangers of the Azerbaijani government’s both stoking and pandering to nationalist extremism, the state’s embrace of Safarov could turn him into a frightening role model for other “patriots.”
The Armenian parliament's vote on Karabakh could well prove an opportunity to test that theory.
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Hungary red-faced after Azerbaijan frees murderer
Questions over strongman's alleged pledge to buy billions in Hungarian bonds
Posted on 04 September 2012
Armenia severed all diplomatic relations with Hungary last Friday following the extradition of the Azerbaijani army officer Ramil Sahib Safarov, who was convicted of murder in Hungary. Safarov killed an Armenian roommate in 2004 during a course of studies organised by NATO in Budapest and was given a life sentence in Hungary. Back in his homeland Safarov was immediately pardoned by the country’s president and has been celebrated as a national hero.
The Hungarian government has since been at pains to explain itself and limit the damage. According to the Hungarian Foreign Ministry, the extradition was in line with the European Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons signed in Strasbourg. The state secretary for foreign affairs and foreign trade at the prime minister’ office Péter Szijjártó said that on Sunday the foreign ministry had given the Azerbaijani ambassador in Budapest a diplomatic note, describing the events following the extradition of the murderer as “unacceptable” and “condemning” them. The Hungarian government was dismayed to learn that Safarov had been pardoned, Szijjártó said.
The state secretary also described the events leading up to the extradition: Safarov’s legal representative had appealed to the Hungarian justice minister to allow Safarov to serve his sentence in Azerbaijan. The Hungarian justice ministry subsequently made contact with the Azerbaijani authorities, which had pledged that the crime for which Safarov was sentenced would also quality as a crime in accordance with the Azerbaijani criminal code and be subject to a life sentence, Szijjártó said. The Azerbaijani authorities had also assured Hungary that Safarov would serve the remaining part of the sentence that he had begun in Hungary in his homeland. The diplomatic note also refers to a promise made in a letter by the deputy justice minister of Azerbaijan dated 15 August 2012, according to which the convicted murder could hope to be released on conditional parole no earlier than 25 years after commencing his prison sentence, Szijjártó said.
The reality was very different: on day of his extradition, Safarov, described in Hungary as an “axe murderer”, was pardoned by Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev, promoted as a soldier and given a rapturous welcome by the people. What is more, he was granted a new flat and the assurance that he would receive his pay retroactively. That did not go unnoticed in the neighbouring country Armenia. The same day Armenian president Serzh Sargsyan announced that his country was severing relations with Hungary. Irate Armenians protested outside the Hungarian consulate in Yerevan and burnt a Hungarian flag.
The reality was very different: on day of his extradition, Safarov, described in Hungary as an “axe murderer”, was pardoned by Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev, promoted as a soldier and given a rapturous welcome by the people. What is more, he was granted a new flat and the assurance that he would receive his pay retroactively. That did not go unnoticed in the neighbouring country Armenia. The same day Armenian president Serzh Sargsyan announced that his country was severing relations with Hungary. Irate Armenians protested outside the Hungarian consulate in Yerevan and burnt a Hungarian flag.
There were also protests in Hungary itself. By Sunday evening the Facebook group “Hey Armenia, sorry about our Prime Minister” had already amassed almost 9,000 members. The organisation “One million for Hungarian press freedom” also announced a demonstration of solidarity with Armenia on Kossuth tér, and called for an explanation from Viktor Orbán.
The largest opposition party, the Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP) said that it was also waiting for an explanation of the events. At a Socialist party event on Sunday in Siófok Socialist MP Zsolt Molnár called for foreign minister János Martonyi to resign. Molnár, who is chairman of the parliamentary committee for national security, also demanded that Martonyi give answers at the next meeting of the committee as to why and how the extradition came about and whether consideration had been given to the safety of Hungarians living in Armenia.
The largest opposition party, the Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP) said that it was also waiting for an explanation of the events. At a Socialist party event on Sunday in Siófok Socialist MP Zsolt Molnár called for foreign minister János Martonyi to resign. Molnár, who is chairman of the parliamentary committee for national security, also demanded that Martonyi give answers at the next meeting of the committee as to why and how the extradition came about and whether consideration had been given to the safety of Hungarians living in Armenia.
Former prime minister Ferenc Gyurcsány’s party, the Democratic Coalition (DK), went one step further and took to the streets. It swiftly repurposed a demonstration taking place in any case against the government’s education policy and marched from the state secretariat for education to the justice ministry. DK party chairman Gyurcsány adroitly linked the two topics: “A government that is willing to hawk the honour of the country for 30 pieces of silver and release a murderer from deserved execution of a prison sentence, is hardly in a position to introduce ethics teaching in schools”, Gyurcsány said. His remark was an allusion to reports in the weekly news magazine HVG that Azerbaijan had pledged to buy Hungarian government bonds with a value of as much as EUR 3 billion in exchange for handing over Safarov.
Gyurcsány told journalists that the Azerbaijani authorities had also appealed to his government to hand over Safarov. However, since it had been clear that Safarov would immediately be released in his homeland and celebrated as a hero, his government had refused the request, Gyurcsány said. He noted that Orbán must have been aware of the likely consequences in the absence of guarantees that the convicted murderer would continue to serve his sentence in his homeland, such as a promise from the Azerbaijani president.
Democratic Coalition deputy chairman Csaba Molnár accused the government of having “turned the honour of the Hungarians into goods for sale” and “brought shame on the country”. He accused Prime Minister Viktor Orbán of “preferring to beg money from the devil” than to reach an agreement with the European Union and the International Monetary Fund. Candles were lit at the end of the demonstration in memory of the Armenian officer Gurgen Margaryan, who was axe murdered in his bed in 2004.
Far-right party Jobbik took a more laid-back view of events. Deputy parliamentary party group leader and deputy chairman of the parliamentary commission for foreign affairs Márton Gyöngyösi said that the extradition was fully in line with international law. He told state news agency MTI that the Armenian reaction was “over the top and hysterical”. Gyöngyösi also commented that his party had announced a policy of opening up to the East, in which Azerbaijan was identified as a strategic partner, ahead of the last general elections. Regardless of the current case, Azerbaijan would continue to be regarded as a such a partner, he said.
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Azerbaijan Criticized For Freeing Convicted Killer
9/4/2012 1:17 AM ET
(RTTNews) - The European Union, United States and Russia have criticized Azerbaijan for freeing a convicted murderer after his extradition from Hungary, and expressed concerns over its possible impact on the international efforts aimed at bringing peace to the central Asian region.
In a joint statement on Monday, EU Foreign Policy chief Catherine Ashton and Stefan Fule, European Commissioner for Enlargement and Neighborhood Policy, expressed concerns over the move by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev to pardon the Azerbaijani military officer convicted of hacking an Armenian officer to death in Budapest eight years ago.
The Azeri serviceman, Ramil Safarov, was sentenced to life imprisonment by the Budapest City Court in 2006 after he confessed to killing Armenian officer, Lt. Gurgen Markarian, with an axe while the two men were in Hungary for attending a NATO language course in 2004.
Ashton and Fule noted in their joint statement that Safarov was transferred from Hungary to Azerbaijan on the "basis of an Azerbaijani request, in the framework of the Convention of Strasbourg on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons of 21 March 1983, to serve the rest of his sentence."
Stressing that EU representatives are in contact with the relevant authorities and will continue to follow the situation closely, the two EU officials urged "Azerbaijan and Armenia to exercise restraint, on the ground as well as in public statements, in order to prevent an escalation of the situation." They also called on the two nations to act responsibly in the interest of regional stability and on-going efforts towards reconciliation.
Russia also expressed "deep concern" over the extradition and pardon, saying: "We believe that these actions of Azerbaijani as well as Hungarian authorities contradict internationally brokered efforts, of the OSCE's Minsk group in particular, to ease tensions in the region."
Separately, the co-chairs of the Minsk group expressed their "deep concern and regret for the damage the pardon and any attempts to glorify the crime have done to the peace process and trust between the sides." Further, U.S. President Barack Obama said he was "deeply concerned" about the incident.
Safarov was sent back to Azerbaijan on Friday after Budapest received assurances from the Azerbaijani Justice Ministry that Safarov's sentence, which included the possibility of parole after 25 years, would be enforced in his home nation.
Despite the assurances provided, Safarov was pardoned by President Ilham Aliyev soon after his arrival in the capital Baku on Friday. In addition, he was promoted to the rank of Major, given an apartment and all the pay he had lost since his arrest eight years ago.
In retaliation to Hungary's decision to transfer Safarov to Azerbaijan and his subsequent release by authorities there, Armenia on Sunday announced its decision to immediately suspend all diplomatic relations with Budapest.
In an apparent warning to Azerbaijan, Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian said: "We don't want a war, but if we have to, we will fight and win. We are not afraid of killers, even if they enjoy the protection of the head of state."
Incidentally, Armenia and Azerbaijan, both former Soviet republics, had fought a war over the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh in the 1990s. Armenian troops are currently occupying the enclave after they helped Armenian separatists to seize control from Azerbaijan in the early 1990s. The war for the enclave resulted in the death of nearly 30,000 people and forced two million others to flee their homes.
Although the two countries signed a cease-fire agreement in May 1994, the dispute remains unresolved despite continued international efforts spearheaded by Russia, France and the U.S. While Azerbaijan demands an immediate withdrawal of Armenian forces from the enclave, Armenia insists on the territory's independence.
Despite the standing cease-fire, brief but fierce border clashes between Armenia and Azerbaijan in early June had led to the deaths of eight soldiers, including five Azerbaijanis and three Armenians.
by RTT Staff Writer
For comments and feedback: editorial@rttnews.com
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What really happened? Azeri-Hungarian negotiations
Ever since Magyar Nemzet received a facsimile of the Azeri promises concerning Ramil Safarov’s continued prison sentence, people in the opposition press kept asking why the Hungarian government was silent on the issue. If the Azeris went back on their word, why don’t the Hungarians protest and condemn the action of Azerbaijan?
Late yesterday afternoon there was a belated protest from the foreign ministry. The Azeri ambassador was told that the Hungarian government disapproves of his country’s handling of Safarov’s case because “it is contrary to the promises given to Hungary by the undersecretary of the Ministry of Justice of Azerbaijan.” But the foreign ministry’s protest was phony at best, and it is clear from the ambassador’s reaction that the Azeris didn’t take the protest very seriously either. The government of Azerbaijan had no reason to apologize. It hadn’t transgressed any international law. And Hungary had no reason to protest; the protest was merely part of a cover-up of the real story.
To my knowledge it was Péter Balázs, foreign minister in the Bajnai government, who first pointed out in an interview on ATV’s Start program this morning that the August 15 letter sent to the Hungarian Ministry of Administration and Justice didn’t include any guarantee, “and if the Hungarians saw any guarantee in this text they have problems with reading comprehension.” I assume that Balázs spoke with an edge and didn’t intend to accuse the government of either naivete or stupidity. The text of the August 15th letter was written as a result of a prior agreement between the negotiating partners. The Hungarians didn’t ask for anything more than they got.
So, let’s go back to see what was promised in the letter signed by Vilayat Zahirov, deputy minister of justice of Azerbaijan. It promised to adhere to Art.9 ¶1 of the Convention on the Transfer of Sentenced Persons of 1983. This passage states: “The competent authorities of the administering State shall: a. continue the enforcement of the sentence immediately or through a court or administrative order, under the conditions set out in Article 10, or b. convert the sentence, through a judicial or administrative procedure, into a decision of that State, thereby substituting for the sanction imposed in the sentencing State a sanction prescribed by the law of the administering State for the same offence.” But there is another article, no. 12, entitled “Pardon, amnesty, commutation.” It is brief: “Each party may grant pardon, amnesty or commutation of the sentence in accordance with its Constitution or other laws.”
In conclusion, Azerbaijan is innocent in this ugly affair. They didn’t promise not to pardon Ramil Safarov. The only guilty one is Hungary who wittingly assisted Azerbaijan in this dirty business. They had to know that the convicted murderer had become a national hero in Azerbaijan right after he committed that unspeakable murder in 2004. Surely, they also had to know that the Azeri government had no intention of keeping Safarov in jail and that more than likely he would receive a pardon from the president of Azerbaijan.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the Hungarian request of August 8 specifically mentioned that a reference to Art.9 ¶1 would do. At the very least the negotiating partners had to agree at one of their several meetings that the Azeris’ so-called guarantee would focus on Art.9 ¶1. That would be enough for a cover story. They could blithely forget about Art.12.
Viktor Orbán and Ilham Aliyev: “and with this … in his sleep”
Montage that appeared on Egyenlő TV
Montage that appeared on Egyenlő TV
This morning at last Viktor Orbán said a few words about the Azeri-Armenian-Hungarian crisis that erupted on Friday. Although he didn’t look exactly calm and rested, he tried to give the impression of a man who doesn’t care what’s going on with regard to his decision to release the Azeri “national hero” or the consequences of this decision. He tried to look cool and give the impression of a man who handles “everything according to its significance.” The indication was that this affair is simply not important enough to worry about. The Armenian government’s decision to break off diplomatic relations with Hungary also didn’t seem to bother the Hungarian prime minister.
Among the opposition parties it was the Demokratikus Koalíció that formulated the clearest condemnation of the Hungarian government’s role in this crisis. It was also DK that outlined the most likely scenario. Csaba Molnár, the second in charge in DK, summarized the party’s opinion this way. “After a day of silence the government began to lie.” By dragging out the August 15th letter of the deputy minister of justice of Azerbaijan they kept claiming that “Azerbaijan conned Hungary.” But nothing of the sort happened. Viktor Orbán knowingly left a loophole for the Azeris by not insisting on guarantees concerning a possible pardon. Surely, Molnár continued, “the experienced and talented lawyers in the ministry of justice were fully aware of Art.12 of the Convention.” So, “the whole responsibility for this fiasco lies entirely with Viktor Orbán and his government.”
The deal, it seems, was struck on the strength of a promise by the Azeris that Azerbaijan would purchase 2-3 billion euros’ worth of Hungarian government bonds. The first news about this possibility appeared in Figyelő, a financial paper. On August 23 the paper reported that “a source close to the economy ministry of György Matolcsy” said that the negotiations with Azerbaijan includes the possibility of floating Hungarian government bonds in Azeri currency, the manat. The amount received from Azerbaijan would cover the greater portion of Hungary’s sovereign debt for this year. However, István Madár, an economist working for Portfolio, has his doubts that anything will come of the deal. He was told by an expert close to the government a few months back when Hungary made a futile attempt to tap Arab funds that “you can hardly expect a country to invest in your government securities before establishing trade relations, relations between parent companies and subsidiaries and personal business experiences….. Azerbaijan eerily resembles a country with which Hungary has no meaningful trade relations.”
According to Madár, Azerbaijan can easily go back on its word unless “honor will rule over rationality in President Aliyev’s mind.” As far as the costs and benefits of the case, he continued, “there is a good chance that yet another attempt at an unorthodox way of debt financing has gone up in flames, and that Hungary’s perception worsened even further in the eyes of the country’s creditors.”
A Turkish bank has confirmed that it is in fact preparing the manat bond issuance. The only question is whether there will be a ready buyer.
After DK’s comments on the Azeri-Hungarian deal were released, Attila Mesterházy, chairman of the Hungarian Socialist Party, also spoke. He asked twelve questions from Viktor Orbán. 1. Did the question of Ramil Safarov’s release come up during the talks between the Hungarian prime minister and Ilhan Aliyev, president of Azerbaijan? 2. Does Novruz Mammadov, the foreign relations chief of the office of the Azeri president, tell the truth when he says that negotiations between Hungary and Azerbaijan have been going on for at least a year? 3. What were the new facts on the basis of which the government decided to change the opinion of the former governments about the release of Ramil Safarov? 4. Did Azerbaijan offer anything for the release of Ramil Safarov? 5. Is it true that the Azeri government offered the purchase of 2-3 billion euros’ worth of Hungarian government bonds? Is there any connection between the offering and the release of the murderer? 6. Did the Hungarian government study the reality of the Azeri guarantee that the murderer will not be pardoned after his return? 7. Did you [Viktor Orbán] receive any objections against the extradition from either the foreign ministry or from the ministry of administration? 8. Why was the government silent on the topic for 48 hours after the news broke? 9. Was the final decision yours or that of your deputy, Tibor Navracsics? 10. Did you anticipate the domestic and international scandal caused by extradition and did you think of the potential damage caused by it? 11. Did you think of the potential national security threat as a result of this decision? 12. Given the situation do you [Orbán] contemplate the dismissal of Deputy Prime Minister Tibor Navracsics and Foreign Minister János Martonyi? Finally, Mesterházy called on Orbán to apologize to the relatives of the murdered Gurgen Margaryan.
In the past Tibor Navracsics had the reputation of being a moderate man in the the top Fidesz leadership. There was also talk about his disapproval of certain aspects of government policies as dictated by Viktor Orbán. I for one never thought that anyone who got as far as Navracsics did in the Orbán administration could offer a significantly better alternative to Orbán. And indeed. After DK released its conclusions concerning the Azeri-Hungarian deal, the ministry of administration and justice released a communique claiming that the Azeri letter was a sufficient guarantee as far as the Hungarians were concerned. After all, Azerbaijan is a member of the Council of Europe.
This story will go on and on.
http://hungarianspectrum.wordpress.com/2012/09/03/what-really-happened-azeri-hungarian-negotiations/
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Guest Post: Hungarian-Azeri-Armenian Relations: The Axe Factor
This is a guest post by Péter Marton.
The act
Ramil Safarov, a lieutenant in the Azerbaijani army, came to Budapest in 2004 to study English at a seminar organized by the Hungarian National Defense University in the framework of NATO’s Partnership for Peace program. There were participants of various nationalities attending the course, including Armenians, and after some more cordial initial encounters, insults were traded between them and the Azeri officer.
Safarov’s Hungarian defense lawyer would later claim that he is an exceptionally intelligent young man, as evidenced by his IQ tests, but in this case his intelligence clearly did not translate into wisdom. On the night of February 19, 2004 he proceeded to hack to death one of the Armenian officers, army lieutenant Gurgen Margaryan, with an axe he had bought the previous day. He then tried to get into the room where the other Armenian officer was staying, at the same dorm, but stopped at calling out the officer’s name in front of the locked door to his room. An Uzbek student put an end to the madness by grabbing Safarov, calming him down. Together they lit a cigarette.
Safarov hails from the broader region of Nagorno-Karabakh. His family members had to flee to Baku, and people whom he referred to as his cousins were killed during the war which clearly traumatized him. In his own retelling he also added, however, that he did not kill anyone during the war with Armenia and that for this reason he felt it was his duty to act this time, feeling this would be a way to get even for atrocities that Azeris suffered during the conflict at the hands of Armenians. He also alleged that at one point his victim insulted the Azeri flag which he saw as particularly offensive – something that further convinced him to take action. What he then did shocked even his fellow Azeri student enrolled in the same program.
The murder caused enormous embarrassment for Hungary. A soldier, for whose security Hungarian authorities had taken responsibility, killed by another guest of the Hungarian state, indirectly under the auspices of NATO. In April 2006, Safarov was sentenced to life imprisonment, and the following year a Hungarian court of appeal upheld the ruling. As it turned out, however, this was not the last time Ramil Safarov would cause major problems for Hungary. Although at the second time when he was to do so, it would not really be by his doing.
Five and a half years later
On August 31, 2012, Hungary extradited Ramil Safarov to Azerbaijan. Upon the Azeri request for extradition, the Hungarian Ministry of Public Administration and Justice reportedly sought formal assurance from its Azeri counterpart that Safarov would duly serve the remainder of his sentence in Azerbaijan, and received a fax reply, signed by the Deputy Minister of Justice, stating that as a matter of general practice sentenced persons who are transferred to Azerbaijan do serve the remainder of their sentences “without conversion or having to go through any new judicial procedure.”
According to the Hungarian government’s version of events, the Hungarian Ministry was at this point satisfied by the Azeri response. They claim that they had no reason to doubt the intentions of a country like Azerbaijan, elected as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council with strong support in the UN General Assembly (having competed against Hungary, incidentally, and Slovenia for the slot reserved for Eastern European countries).
With authorization from Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Hungarian authorities went ahead with the transfer. Upon Safarov’s arrival, Azeri President Ilham Aliyev immediately pardoned him, and then promoted him to the rank of major in the Azerbaijani army. In no time the masses were celebrating his return home on the streets. The elated deputy chairman and executive secretary of the presidential New Azerbaijan Party, Ali Akhmedov declared that now that “Ramil was released, next is the liberation of Karabakh.”
What changed in-between
In a nutshell, Azerbaijan became very important, for Hungary as well as for others. By the time Ramil Safarov decided to kill his Armenian schoolmate, plans for what is widely known now as the Nabucco pipeline were already being considered. Caucasian developments slowly paved the way for such a project to seem feasible, and this prompted a wave of engagements in the field energy diplomacy by hitherto passive players, including Eastern European countries facing the problem of one-sided dependence on Russian natural gas imports.
Safarov became very important, too. Zahid Oruj, a member of the Azerbaijani parliament’s national security committee now claims that the chief reason for the opening of an Azerbaijani embassy in Budapest was to defend Safarov’s interests and expedite his release. Azeri diplomats did indeed work hard on this. On numerous occasions they requested Safarov’s extradition, only to be turned down.
Then the Hungarian government changed, too, with Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government coming to power in 2010. The new leadership inherited problems with state debt and was seeking to address this challenge through what it called “unorthodox” solutions. In order to remain loyal to its own, peculiar vision of economic policy, the government was now interested in seeking unorthodox sources of debt refinancing as well, as an alternative to the IMF and its conditionality-based lending. At the same time they were pushing on with Hungary’s already intense efforts in energy diplomacy. They also announced a policy of “global opening” and later a policy of “eastern opening,” turning, for favorable economic cooperation agreements and assistance, to countries like China, Saudi Arabia and even Azerbaijan. In the beginning of August this year, news emerged that Hungary was considering an issuance of sovereign bonds in Turkey, denominated in either Turkish lira or Azeri manat, or both. At around the same time, the Azeri oil firm, SOCARindicated they would eventually decide on whether they would prefer the Nabucco-West or the TAP (Trans-Adriatic) pipeline as the priority arm of the gas supply route carrying gas from the Caspian Shah Deniz field to Europe.
And then Safarov’s extradition took place.
Perceptions
The Hungarian government is left looking either hopelessly naïve or blatantly cynical in the wake of Safarov’s pardon in Azerbaijan. The contrast between the two different interpretations gets even starker when one considers that there may have been occasional talks about Safarov’s fate between Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and Azeri President Ilham Aliyev for over a year, as Novruz Mammadov, the foreign affairs secretary of the Azeri presidential cabinet now says.
The current Hungarian government version is in line with the former assumption. Armenian protesters in various capitals from Yerevan to Washington, for their part, were keen onrunning the point home that it is the second version – a case of cynicism – that they believe to be true. Péter Szijjártó, the foreign affairs secretary of the Prime Minister’s Office in charge of the implementation of Hungary’s “eastern opening,” engaged in damage control by saying: “a dull international legal issue and the two countries’ economic cooperation have no bearing on each other whatsoever.” Meanwhile, both the Hungarian Government Debt Management Agency and SOFAZ, the State Oil Fund of Azerbaijandenied the existence of plans for the issuance or the purchasing of Hungarian sovereign bonds, respectively.
Regardless of this and the Hungarian diplomatic note handed in protest of the presidential pardon to the Azeri ambassador in Budapest, Armenia broke off diplomatic ties with Hungary, rather embarrassingly for a country like Hungary, having, as it does, a stake in the European Union’s Eastern Partnership. This may be true even though the Hungarian Armenian National Minority Self-Government is now saying that the Armenian ambassador to Vienna, Austria, who would have been accredited to Budapest as well, could not present his letter of credence to the President of Hungary for over a year, and that diplomatic ties were thus not functioning really well anyway.
Hard realities
Whatever one thinks of the reasons for Hungary’s decision, there is no denying the fact that as long as natural gas imports remain important for the country, it will need to keep the Azeri option alive. And although calculations regarding this were not necessarily at the core of the move to extradite Safarov and thus please the Azeri people and leadership, it now transpires more clearly that popular Azeri attitudes about Hungary were in fact not very positive.
Ali Akhmedov, in the same speech, quoted above, in which he envisioned the liberation of Karabakh to follow Ramil Safarov’s release soon, remembered what happened eight years ago in Budapest in the following interesting terms: “Both Karabakh, and Ramil became victims of saboteurs.”
“Saboteur” is an interesting label to apply to a country for sentencing a murderer. The background to this may perhaps be illustrated by recent commentary from Azeri political analyist Ilgar Mammadov who concludes that as Hungary is widely seen in Azerbaijan as a country where Armenians are integrated into the elite since centuries, “the case of Safarov was also a strong slap in the face to all holders of the myth of the power of the Armenian diaspora.”
Ali Akhmedov is now sort-of generously giving credit to Hungary for “being able to assess” that “in world history no cases of Azerbaijan’s violence, injustice against any country have been recorded,” and that therefore “Azerbaijan has the right to expect from the other the same treatment.” He says he was happy to see that “when there is mind – no need to use force.”
That such attitudes may change vis-à-vis Hungary now is scarce consolation for the damage that has been done, not to mention the morals of the story.
Péter Marton is a lecturer in International Relations at Corvinus University in Budapest.
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SA Time: Tuesday, September 04, 2012 8:39:34 PM
EU head ‘disturbed’ by killer's pardon
September 4 2012 at 06:32pm
By SAPA
By SAPA
REUTERS
European Parliament head Martin Schulz expressed horror Tuesday after Azerbaijan brushed aside criticism of its pardon for a soldier who axed an Armenian officer to death in his sleep.
Brussels - European Parliament head Martin Schulz expressed horror Tuesday after Azerbaijan brushed aside criticism of its pardon for a soldier who axed an Armenian officer to death in his sleep.
Schulz added his voice to condemnation of the pardon - already sharply criticised by the US and EU President Herman Van Rompuy - after Baku's foreign minister appeared to blame Yerevan for Azerbaijani soldier Ramil Safarov's 2004 killing of Armenian officer Gurgen Margarian.
In a move that has ratcheted up tensions between the ex-Soviet foes, Azerbaijan pardoned Safarov last week after he was extradited from Hungary, where he had been serving a life sentence for the murder.
“The convention on the transfer of sentenced people should not be abused for political purpose,” Schulz said in a statement.
“I am disturbed by what appears to be a politically motivated pardon of Mr Safarov by the president of Azerbaijan,” he added, while urging Azerbaijan and Armenia “to avoid any moves and statements that might exacerbate the situation.”
Safarov hacked Margarian to death in his sleep at a military academy in Budapest where the servicemen were attending English-language courses organised by NATO.
His lawyers claimed in court that he was traumatised because some of his relatives had been killed during Azerbaijan's war with Armenia over the disputed region of Nagorny Karabakh in the 1990s, and alleged that Margarian had insulted his country.
Earlier Tuesday, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov told US Deputy Secretary of State William Burns that the murder was “directly related” to the war.
“Ramil Safarov and his family, like a million other Azerbaijanis, are forced refugees and as a result of ethnic cleansing, they were expelled from their homes. First of all, this must be taken into account,” Mammadyarov said.
The US State Department has said it is “extremely troubled” by the pardon. - Sapa-AFP
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EU Suggests Azerbaijan Broke Pledges, Pardon 'Endangers' Region
Azerbaijani military officer Ramil Safarov walks on Martyrs' Alley, a national memorial in the Azerbaijani capital, Baku, on August 31.
By RFE/RL
September 04, 2012
A spokeswoman for the European Union's foreign policy chief says Azerbaijan appears to have abandoned pledges it made to EU member Hungary ahead of the handover and subsequent pardon of an army man serving a life sentence for murdering a fellow NATO trainee from Armenia.
A spokeswoman for High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Catherine Ashton, Maja Kocijancic, also told RFE/RL's Brussels correspondent that Baku's actions threaten "fragile" stability in the region.
She said the bloc was asking Baku to explain its freeing of Ramil Safarov, who confessed to having killed Armenian officer Gurgen Margarian with an ax in 2004 after Margarian allegedly "insulted" Azerbaijan.
"According to what we know now, on the basis of the information gathered, it would appear that certain conditions and commitments that were agreed between Hungary and Azerbaijan on the transfer of Ramil Safarov have not been met," Kocijancic said, "and in that respect we will continue or we will try to be in touch with the Azeri side to hear the explanation why this has happened and why the behavior that is endangering the fragile situation the region is continuing."
EU President Herman van Rompuy was joined by European Parliament speaker Martin Schulz on September 4 in condemning Baku's actions.
Safarov received a pardon from President Ilham Aliyev immediately after his return to Azerbaijan on August 31 and was given a military promotion the next day, infuriating Armenia and eliciting U.S. "concern."
Armenia has suspended diplomatic and other ties with Hungary as a result of the repatriation.
Officials in Budapest insist they received certain guarantees from their Azerbaijani counterparts, and claim they acted under international law.
Hungarians have also expressed anger at Prime Minister Viktor Orban's (Fidesz) government, with nearly 2,000 people protesting in the capital over Safarov's extradition.
The co-chairs of the Minsk Group with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) announced on September 3 that they had met separately with the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan to discuss Safarov's pardon.
RFE/RL's Brussels correspondent says EU foreign ministers could discuss the issue when they gather for an informal meeting on Cyprus on September 7.
A spokeswoman for High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Catherine Ashton, Maja Kocijancic, also told RFE/RL's Brussels correspondent that Baku's actions threaten "fragile" stability in the region.
She said the bloc was asking Baku to explain its freeing of Ramil Safarov, who confessed to having killed Armenian officer Gurgen Margarian with an ax in 2004 after Margarian allegedly "insulted" Azerbaijan.
"According to what we know now, on the basis of the information gathered, it would appear that certain conditions and commitments that were agreed between Hungary and Azerbaijan on the transfer of Ramil Safarov have not been met," Kocijancic said, "and in that respect we will continue or we will try to be in touch with the Azeri side to hear the explanation why this has happened and why the behavior that is endangering the fragile situation the region is continuing."
EU President Herman van Rompuy was joined by European Parliament speaker Martin Schulz on September 4 in condemning Baku's actions.
Safarov received a pardon from President Ilham Aliyev immediately after his return to Azerbaijan on August 31 and was given a military promotion the next day, infuriating Armenia and eliciting U.S. "concern."
Armenia has suspended diplomatic and other ties with Hungary as a result of the repatriation.
Officials in Budapest insist they received certain guarantees from their Azerbaijani counterparts, and claim they acted under international law.
Hungarians have also expressed anger at Prime Minister Viktor Orban's (Fidesz) government, with nearly 2,000 people protesting in the capital over Safarov's extradition.
The co-chairs of the Minsk Group with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) announced on September 3 that they had met separately with the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan to discuss Safarov's pardon.
RFE/RL's Brussels correspondent says EU foreign ministers could discuss the issue when they gather for an informal meeting on Cyprus on September 7.
Based on reporting by RFE/RL Brussels correspondent Rikard Jozwiak and additional reporting by AFP and Reuters
###
4 September 2012 Last updated at 16:20 GMT
Viewpoint: Setback for peace in the Caucasus
By Thomas de Waal Caucasus expert
Ramil Safarov, centre, has been treated like a national hero since returning to Azerbaijan
This is a black week for those who are seeking a peaceful settlement of the long-running Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict.
On 31 August, in a deeply provocative move, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliev pardoned convicted murderer Ramil Safarov on his return to Baku from a Hungarian prison.
Safarov had been attending a Nato training-course in 2004 when he killed Armenian fellow officer Gurgen Markarian with an axe while he slept.
Back in 2004, the brutal killing on ethnic grounds caused an inevitable upsurge of emotion in both Armenia and Azerbaijan, which have been waging a conflict in various forms over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh since 1988.
There was an upsurge in the war of words in the media, which generally goes further than what officials allow themselves to say.
Markarian was given a state funeral. In Azerbaijan a few members of parliament dared to call Safarov a "hero," but many Azerbaijanis felt ashamed at how his action reflected on their country and, mercifully, government officials mostly kept silent.
Eight years on, that has all turned round.
This is now a full-blown state-to-state row, with as yet unknowable consequences. For reasons that have yet to be fully explained, the Hungarian government negotiated the extradition of Safarov to Baku having secured an agreement, they maintained, that he would only be eligible for parole after having served the remainder of a 25-year prison term in an Azerbaijani jail.
Hero's welcome
Instead, Safarov was pardoned. Leaving him a free man without public comment would have been bad enough. The Azerbaijani government went much further than that, treating Safarov as a hero. He was given an apartment in Baku and personally promoted to the rank of major by the defence minister.
Every action has a reaction. Unsurprisingly, the US government and the Russian foreign ministry reacted to the news with strong disapproval.
The spokeswoman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton also expressed alarm but stopped short of directly criticising its own member state, Hungary. The EU already has enough problems with controversial Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
Thousands died in the six-year war over Nagorno-Karabakh that ended in 1994
As for Armenia, it appears to be close to boiling over. It has suspended diplomatic relations with Hungary and observers of the Karabakh negotiating process - already on the verge of failure - are watching apprehensively for what it will do next.
The Armenian government was already telling all foreign interlocutors how unhappy it was with the state of the peace process. There were tough questions to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in June as to why there was not a sharper US response to violations of the Armenian-Azerbaijani ceasefire, which are widely perceived to come more from the Azerbaijani side.
Yerevan could now be tempted to suspend its participation in the peace talks.
Some Armenian commentators are calling for more extreme steps such as recognising breakaway Armenian-controlled Nagorno-Karabakh as an independent state. There will also be the inevitable worry that a fanatical Armenian will try to commit a revenge attack.
From the political perspective, to call the Azerbaijani government's actions a mistake is an understatement. It is a worrying indication of the quality of advice that President Ilham Aliev is receiving from his inner circle.
Over the past few years, the government in Baku has spent tens of millions of dollars of its new oil revenues promoting the image of Azerbaijan as a new, modernising, dynamic country. The effect has been quite successful, with results ranging from Azerbaijan joining the UN Security Council to Baku hosting feel-good events such as the Eurovision Song Contest.
All that PR work now has to contend with a contrary image, of the government welcoming home an axe-murderer.
Sadly, the events of this week are a big boost for radicals on both sides.
They strengthen the hands of those Armenian hardliners who say that this proves that Azerbaijanis are barbarians who cannot be trusted.
In Azerbaijan, I know a substantial number of non-governmental activists and middle-level officials who have been working quietly on dialogue projects with Armenians. It is hard to see those going forward in the current environment.
If there is any silver lining to this dark episode it could be that the international community pays more attention to the dangers of a new Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh. The conflict is not "frozen," as it is frequently described.
The current format of quiet mediation by France, Russia and the US is not strong enough to move the two sides from their intransigent positions. The reception given Safarov suggests that the situation is moving closer to war than peace. This slide can be halted, but the time to start working harder on diplomacy is now.
Thomas de Waal is a senior associate of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington DC.
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