Hungary 'Sold' Safarov, Now Hindering Support Process to Armenia

The Gardman Shirvan Nakhichevan Armenian Union issued a statement: "As it has become known, Hungary is trying to block the project for providing 10 million euros in assistance from the European Union's Peace Fund to Armenia, demanding that Azerbaijan also be included in the program. Hungary's destructive behavior has long been known to the international community.

Back in 2004, during the NATO 'Partnership for Peace' course held in Hungary, Azerbaijani Ramil Safarov murdered Armenian officer Gurgen Margaryan with an axe, subsequently being recognized as culpable and sentenced to life imprisonment without the right to pardon for the first 30 years. However, merely eight years later, Safarov was extradited to Azerbaijan, where he was hailed as a hero and received significant state and public honors.

In this way, Hungary became complicit in a criminal process of anti-Armenian sentiment, which has not ceased in Azerbaijan and continues to ensure its campaign thanks to inadequate mechanisms of punishment and accountability. Now, Hungary, which, following the genocide perpetrated by Azerbaijan against Artsakh from 2020 to 2023, should at a minimum advocate for the safe and guaranteed return of Armenian refugees, wishes to block the process of providing assistance to Armenia, having no legal and especially moral grounds for doing so, relying instead on a politically unilateral and unhealthy selectivity.

In 2012, the Hungarian political elite 'sold' Ramil Safarov, succumbing to Baku's oil dollars in front of the eyes of the just world. Now Hungary is once again obstructing the aid process to Armenia, once again yielding to cheap Azerbaijani propaganda against the arming of Armenia. Meanwhile, Hungary vocalizes its support for Azerbaijan as well, raising the natural question of why. Azerbaijan has already transformed into a center of regional despotism, representing a military threat to stability and peace.

Over the last four years, Azerbaijan has continuously engaged in large-scale and local military operations, completely ethnically cleansing Artsakh and occupying the sovereign territory of Armenia. Has Hungary made a single condemning statement regarding this? Is such behavior not complicity in acts of genocide? Therefore, Hungary, and any country that supports Azerbaijani expansionism, will bear equal responsibility for all crimes committed against humanity.

The Gardman-Shirvan-Nakhichevan All-Armenian Union strongly condemns Hungary's destructive conduct and calls on the Hungarian political elite to sobriety and justice. Instead of expressing remorse for previously becoming an accomplice to Azerbaijan and supporting victims of Azerbaijani criminal policies at different times, the authorities in Hungary are making unthinkable efforts to please a state entity that is progressively becoming a political pariah in the civilized world. The temporary Hungarian authorities will come and go, but the damage done to the country's reputation and the label of a supporter of genocide will haunt the next ones for a long time to come."