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ISTANBUL: NATO Chief Accuses Azerbaijan Of Harming Peace Efforts

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  • ISTANBUL: NATO Chief Accuses Azerbaijan Of Harming Peace Efforts

    NATO CHIEF ACCUSES AZERBAIJAN OF HARMING PEACE EFFORTS

    Today's Zaman
    Sept 7 2012
    Turkey

    NATO's chief accused Azerbaijan of undermining peace efforts with its
    neighbor Armenia by pardoning a soldier who had murdered an Armenian
    and warned the countries on Friday they must not return to war.

    NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said he was "deeply
    concerned" about Azerbaijan's decision to clear Ramil Safarov and its
    impact on the Caucasus Mountain countries' still simmering dispute
    over the Nagorno-Karabakh region.

    "There must be no return to conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan,"
    Rasmussen told students during a visit to a diplomatic academy in
    Azerbaijan's capital Baku. "There is no military solution" to the
    dispute, he added.

    Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev angered Armenia and world powers
    by pardoning Safarov after the army officer was repatriated last week
    from Hungary, where he had served eight years of a life term.

    Safarov had been convicted of murdering an Armenian officer during
    NATO-sponsored language training in Budapest in 2004.

    But the 35-year-old was treated as a hero upon his return, promoted
    to major and given an apartment and back pay for his years in jail.

    "I am deeply concerned by the Azerbaijani decision to pardon Ramil
    Safarov. The act he committed in 2004 was a crime which should not be
    glorified, as this damages trust and does not contribute to the peace
    process," said Rasmussen, who was due to meet Aliyev later on Friday.

    Ethnic Armenian forces defeated Azeri troops and took control of
    the mountainous Nagorno-Karabakh region in a war that erupted as the
    Soviet Union disintegrated in 1991.

    A 1994 ceasefire halted the conflict which killed 30,000 people and
    forced about a million, mostly Azerbaijanis, to flee. Fighting still
    breaks out intermittently across the ceasefire line and Aliyev has
    repeatedly said Azerbaijan may one day take the region by force.

    Countless meetings between presidents and international mediation
    led by the United States, Russia and France have brought no deal to
    end the dispute in the strategic South Caucasus, a route for Westward
    energy exports from the Caspian Sea area, including Azeri oil and gas.

    Hungarian authorities say Azerbaijan had promised to uphold the
    sentence handed down to Safarov, who entered Lieutenant Gurgen
    Markaryan's room as he slept and attacked him with a knife and axe,
    nearly severing his head.

    Armenia has suspended diplomatic relations with Hungary, and opponents
    of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban say the decision to free
    Safarov was suspicious at a time when he was trying to establish
    closer economic ties with energy-rich Azerbaijan.


    From: Baghdasarian
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