Heritage issues statement
Armenia's opposition Heritage Party issued a statement in connection with the extradition of Azerbaijani life-sentenced officer Ramil Safarov and the ensuing regional international developments.
As a result of Safarov's extradition by Hungary, Azerbaijani President arbitrarily discontinued administration of justice towards a criminal. President Ilham Aliyev's step is illegal; it is provocation threatening stability in the region and manifestation of hostility towards Armenians.
The country led by a president giving that sample of unlawful, provocative and xenophobic conduct cannot be considered a bearer of values declared by the United Nations and take a seat at the UN Security Council. The Heritage Party considers that Armenia and especially Hungary must raise the issue of expelling Azerbaijan from the UN Security Council and transmitting Ramil Safarov to The Hague International Court.
The party values the response of international organisations, governments and figures who condemned the illegitimate and willful step of Azerbaijani President. We also regret that certain international structures simply have called the parties to demonstrate a superficial approach to the issue. Still, in both cases improper attitude was displayed towards anti-democratic and corrupted essence of Azerbaijani statehood.
According to Hungarian sources, Azerbaijan had offered Hungary 2-3 billion dollars as bribe for extraditing Safarov. If a president can neglect the needs of millions of citizens, including those of refugees, and squander the money to make his crazy longing become true, it proves that there is lack of state order in the country.
Heritage invites its sister-parties in the European People's Party (EPP) and especially the governing Fidesh party of Hungary, as well as the Governments of EU countries to attach attention to this unveiled reality and assumes there is a ground to discuss the suspension of EU Association Agreement negotiations with Azerbaijan, until a control over the budget and an end to the arbitrariness of the leaders is established in that country.
Unfortunately, since the 1988 pogroms in Sumgait the anti-Armenian lunacy in Azerbaijan rarely attracted that much international attention and had that illustrative expression as the developments around the Safarov case did. The Heritage Party considers that the emerged situation is an appropriate ground to introduce the core essence of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict to the new generation of politicians and diplomats, to reinstate the necessity of engaging the NKR representatives into the Minsk Group peace negotiations and to argue the imperative of recognizing the independence of Nagorno-Karabakh.
At the same time, in the light of the ongoing developments the Heritage Party considers right for the Armenian Parliament to discuss and recognize the independence of Nagorno-Karabakh first and therefore has proposed the relating bill to the National Assembly.
