Mamijanyan at PACE: Hungary Must Apologize for Safarov

Hayk Mamijanyan, head of the "I Have Honor" opposition faction of the National Assembly, delivered a speech at the PACE plenary session during the discussion of the report on "Hungary's fulfillment of its membership obligations to the Council of Europe."

"In 2004, during a NATO event in Hungary, an Azerbaijani participant hacked to death Armenian Armed Forces officer Gurgen Margaryan with an axe while he was asleep. In 2012, Hungary extradited that murderer to Azerbaijan, where he was immediately pardoned, and also given a new military rank and an apartment. The then Secretary General of the Council of Europe stated, and I quote: 'To glorify a convicted murderer and turn him into a hero is unacceptable.' Nevertheless, to this day, the Hungarian authorities have not issued any official apology. They are obliged to apologize to the Armenian people," Mamijanyan stated.

He recalled that five years later, as a result of an investigation into an Azerbaijani money laundering scheme, it was revealed that in 2012, during the days of Safarov's extradition, transfers of more than 9 million US dollars were made to the account of MKB bank in Budapest, the capital of Hungary. Moreover, Hungary continues to adhere to its anti-Armenian, and in many cases, overtly hostile stance.

"This year, when the member states of the European Union decided to provide Armenia with 'non-lethal' military assistance from the European Peace Facility, Hungary vetoed that decision. Moreover, according to information published in the press, just a few months before the Azerbaijani attack, Budapest had already signed contracts to help the Azerbaijani authorities in the 'reconstruction of villages' in Nagorno-Karabakh," Mamijanyan noted.