Armenia 'ready for war' after Azerbaijan axe-killer pardon

Protesters burn a Hungarian national flag during a rally outside the Hungarian consulate in Yerevan.

Armenia warned Azerbaijan it was ready for war as tensions soared between the ex-Soviet foes after Baku pardoned and promoted an Azerbaijani officer who axed an Armenian soldier to death.

Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev last week immediately pardoned Ramil Safarov after he was extradited from Hungary, where he had been serving a life sentence for the 2004 killing.

Safarov was also promoted to the rank of major, given a house and eight years' worth of back-pay after returning home to a hero's welcome, in defiance of assurances from Baku to Budapest that he would serve out his term in Azerbaijan.

"We don't want a war, but if we have to, we will fight and win. We are not afraid of killers, even if they enjoy the protection of the head of state," Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian fumed in a statement late on Sunday.

Safarov hacked Armenian officer Gurgen Margarian to death at a military academy in Budapest where the servicemen were attending English-language courses organised by NATO.

 His lawyers claimed in court that he was traumatised because some of his relatives had been killed during Azerbaijan's war with Armenia, and alleged that Margarian had insulted his country.

Armenia and Azerbaijan are locked in a long-running conflict over the disputed region of Nagorny Karabakh, where they fought a war in the 1990s.

Russia, which is part of the OSCE Minsk Group that is mediating in negotiations to find a peaceful solution to the Karabakh conflict, expressed "deep concern" over the extradition and pardon.

"We believe that these actions of the Azerbaijanis, as well as the Hungarian authorities, go against the efforts agreed at an international level primarily through the OSCE Minsk Group aimed at reducing tension in the region," Russian foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said in a statement.

The EU said Baku and Yerevan should refrain from exacerbating the dispute.

"We call on Azerbaijan and Armenia to exercise restraint on the ground and in public statements in order to prevent any kind of escalation of this situation," Maja Kocijancic, a spokeswoman for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, told a news conference in Brussels.

Yerevan on Friday cut diplomatic ties with Hungary over the pardon, while US President Barack Obama said he was "deeply concerned" about the incident.

Hungary summoned Azerbaijan's ambassador on Sunday to protest at Baku's decision after earlier saying it had been assured Safarov would serve out his term.

"Hungary finds it unacceptable and condemns the pardoning of Ramil Safarov," foreign ministry state secretary Zsolt Nemeth told ambassador Vilayat Guliyev, the national news agency MTI reported.

Armenia-backed separatists seized Nagorny Karabakh from Azerbaijan in the war that left some 30,000 people dead.

The two sides have not signed a final peace deal since the 1994 ceasefire and there are still regular firefights along the front line. Analysts warn the frozen conflict risks slipping again into full-scale war.

Israel withdraws Hungary speaker invite in Nazi row

The speaker of Israel's Knesset has withdrawn an invitation to his Hungarian counterpart to join a parliamentary ceremony, to protest his participation in an event honouring a pro-Nazi writer.

Israel's foreign ministry confirmed Monday that the Hungarian speaker of parliament Laszlo Kover was no longer welcome at the ceremony next month honouring Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat who saved Jews during World War II.

Israeli speaker Reuven Rivlin rescinded the invitation in a June 20 letter to Kover, criticising his participation in an event honouring writer Jozsef Nyiro.

"We in Israel were appalled by the shocking news that you chose to participate in the event honouring the memory of the anti-Semitic writer Jozsef Nyiro," Rivlin wrote.

Nyiro's party, he added, "cooperated with the German Nazi murderers in realising their programme to annihilate the Jewish people." "Anyone who participates in such an event cannot possibly then take part in an event to honour a man like Raoul Wallenberg, a beacon of humanity, who saved Jews, who is a symbol of the struggle against Nazi Germany and its collaborators, one of whom you chose to identify with and pay homage to." Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor told AFP that Hungary's president would represent his country at the Knesset event next month instead.

Kover's participation in the event honouring Nyiro has already caused controversy, with Nobel peace laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel citing it in a decision to return Hungary's highest honour earlier this month.

Nyiro supported Hungary's 1920-1944 dictator and Hitler ally Miklos Horthy as well as Ferenc Szalasi, the leader of the brutal Arrow Cross regime installed by the Nazis after the ouster of Horthy in 1944.

Romania has thwarted plans for a reburial of Nyiro's remains but a religious commemoration took place instead, and was attended by Kover as well as by Gabor Vona, leader of Hungary's far-right Jobbik party.

Romanian-born Wiesel, who is of Hungarian descent, was presented with Hungary's highest award, the Order of Merit, Grand Cross, by president Ferenc Madl in 2004.