Murder in a NATO Peace Program

The Funeral of  Lt. Gurgen Margaryan in Armenia.

The NATO partnership for peace program was created to promote bi-lateral cooperation and cultural enrichment between member states of the North-Atlantic. In the beginning of 2004, representatives of signatories participated in English-Language courses, held in Budapest, Hungary.

It was only one month into the 3-month event when the peace program took a murderous turn. During the night of February 18, representative of Azerbaijan, Ramil Safarov entered the bedroom of Armenian representative, Gurgen Markarian and proceeded to decapitate the defenseless man in his sleep. Axed over sixteen times, the twenty-five year old Armenian engineer was said to have been nearly beheaded in his bed, with his attacker inflicting successive stab wounds to the body thereafter. Following the butchering of Gurgen Markarian, Ramil Safarov attempted to murder another Armenian participant, Hayk Makuchyan, who had locked the door due to screams and warnings from Markarian's roommate and fellow attendees.

Ramil Safarov and fellow students testified that there had been no conflict between the Armenian and the Azerbaijani participants prior to the attack, revealing that the slaughter was purely an ethnically motivated hate crime, with Safarov confessing,

"I regret that I hadn't killed any Armenian before this. The army sent me to this training and here I learnt that two Armenians were taking the same course with us. I must say that hatred against Armenians grew inside me. In the beginning we were greeting each other, or rather they said "hi" to me but I didn't respond. The reason why I committed the murder was that they passed by and smiled in our face. At that moment I decided to kill them, to saw their heads off.."

The premeditated nature of this vicious crime, along the perpetrators obvious lack of remorse caused Ramil Safarov to be handed a sentence of life imprisonment by Budapest courts. After eight years in a Hungarian prison, Azerbaijan brokered a deal for Safarov's extradition home. Upon his arrival Azeri President Ilham Aliyev awarded the murderer 8 years back pay, a home and promotion in military rank in honor of his cowardly crime.

Sponsored by the Azeri state as a national hero, President Illham Aliyev proved once and for all his genocidal intentions towards his neighbors. His hostile tolerance of unjust killings of sleeping victims undoubtedly foreshadows the fate of Armenians if they ever have the misfortune of living under Azerbaijani rule. Professing that "The Armenians of the world are our enemies", Illham Aliyev conditions the children of his nation to celebrate racist barbarity, fueling instability in the region. It was precisely this type of government rhetoric and policy which caused the Sumgait massacre of Armenians in 1988, sparking a war between the two countries.

As if taunting the idea of the peace, Illham Aliyev disrespected the entire international community by encouraging the use of educational peace programs as an appropriate battlefield. With such villainous and unapologetic support displayed for Ramil Safarov's savage actions by the head of state, it remains highly suspicious that Mr. Safarov was not sent intentionally by his government with the motive of ambushing Armenians under the cover of a peace program. Tearing diplomatic trust and staining NATO's well-intentioned enrichment programs as a grave risk for nation's willing to send future participants.

Armenian Defense Minister’s helicopter reportedly comes under Azeri fire

Armenian Defense Minister Seyran Ohanyan arrived in the military unit in Noyemberyan at about 11 a.m. this morning.

The Azerbaijani air forces opened fire at the Defense Minister's helicopter, aravot.am reports, citing eyewitness accounts.

Minister Ohanyan spent about two hours in the military unit, where a soldier was killed last week. He returned to Yerevan on the same helicopter, the paper informs.

Spokesman for the Ministry of Defense Artsrun Hovhannisyan neither confirmed, nor refuted the information about the shooting. He said only there were no traces of bullets helicopter.

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Azerbaijan is ready to unleash another war. This times it does not go about Nagorno Karabakh. The story is about Armenia. Azeri President Ilkham Aliyev made a bellicose statement on November 7 at the funeral ceremony held for the saboteur, who was killed in an armed clash on the border with Nagorno Karabakh. The Azeris, the president said, were ready to use military force to solve the Karabakh question any time. Speaking about Armenia, Aliyev said that it was an illegal state.

The president's remarks fit the circumstances in which they were announced. On November 7, Azerbaijan bid farewell to two military men. One of them died on June 18 when the Azeri army was trying to break through the line of contact with armed forced of Nagorno Karabakh. Ilkham Aliyev signed a decree to award the title of the Hero of Azerbaijan to the saboteur; a street in Baku will be named after the military man.

According to the president, Azerbaijan does not refuse from negotiations with Armenia, albeit only before the moment when it is possible to retrieve the country's integrity peacefully. "If we see that it is impossible, Azerbaijan will retrieve its territorial integrity militarily," Aliyev said.

"I don't doubt that we have all opportunities for it - combat training, material and technical means, ammunition and weapons, the professional army, high morale and the will of the Azerbaijani nation. We will be able to retrieve the territorial integrity of the country militarily," Aliyev said.

It is worthy of note that the Azeri president is known for his bellicose remarks. However, the statement that he said after the threat of using military power in Karabakh, has never been made before. Aliyev's remarks may mean that he denies the right of being an independent state not only to Karabakh, but to Armenia as well.

"Azerbaijan will retrieve its territorial integrity. Nagorno Karabakh is our land, our native land. The present Armenian state was founded on the land that historically belonged to Azerbaijan," Aliyev said. The president has probably forgotten that the ancient Armenian Kingdom was established hundreds and even thousands of years prior to the establishment of the Azerbaijani nation, not to mention the fact that Azerbaijan as an independent state was founded only in 1918.

Aliyev's remarks followed the talks with the President of Armenia, Serzh Sargsyan, which took place on October 27. The two presidents agreed to exchange the bodies of the military men, who were killed in a battle on the contact line between the conflicting parties. In addition, Armenia and Azerbaijan agreed to continue the dialogue to regulate the long-standing conflict.

Was Aliyev intended to gain political profit from his bellicose remarks? It could be possible, taking into consideration the fact that parliamentary elections took place in the country on November 7.

Armed clashes in the area of the Karabakh conflict occur on a regular basis during the recent six months, and the conflict seems to escalate. In addition, Azerbaijan has been involved in arms deal lately, purchasing arms from foreign countries.

For the time being, officials of either Armenia or Nagorno Karabakh have not showed any reactions to Aliyev's remarks. Armenia has its own vision about the history of the region. There are officials in the Armenian administration who believe that Azerbaijan is the territory of Armenia, which was taken away from the country by Arab, Persian and Turkish conquerors. Such an interpretation is obviously an exaggeration. Aliyev went too far as well. The Armenian state was founded over 2,000 years ago and took the vast territory from the Caspian to the Mediterranean Sea during the peak of its power. Armenia was the first state in the world to have recognized Christianity. Therefore, it is incorrect (to say the least) to consider the Armenian land as the land of Azerbaijan.

The recent statement from the Azeri president is another fact to prove how complicated the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia is. Too much blood has been shed during many centuries of the conflict between the two nations. The massacre of Armenians in Sumgait in 1988, the expulsion of Armenians from Baku, the subsequent expulsion of Azerbaijanis from Armenia and the war in Karabakh during the 1990s that ended with the defeat of Azerbaijan's army - all that is still fresh in memory.

It goes without saying that the Azeri army is technologically more powerful than it was in 1994. The Armenian army was not born yesterday either. Baku needs to bear in mind the fact that neither Brussels nor Washington will support Azerbaijan, as it happened with Georgia in 2008. The Armenian lobby in the West will be stronger than the influence of Azeri energy carriers.

The Nagorno Karabakh conflict is like the conflict in the Middle East, which seems to last forever. Bellicose statements shatter all hopes for peaceful regulation of the conflict. Armenia may take efforts to prove that Azerbaijan is a militarist state that nurtures another genocide against the country.

Armenia is one of the few countries where Russia has its army bases. Like it happened with South Ossetia, Russia will not be able to sit on its hands in case of a military attack against its ally.

Sergey Balmasov 

Vadim Trukhachev 

Pravda.Ru