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STATEMENT OF ARMENIAN NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS ON THE TRAGEDY IN BUDAPEST

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According to data by www.mediadialogue.org, on March 9, 2004 4 public organizations of Armenia – Yerevan Press Club, Helsinki Committee of Armenia, Civil Society Institute and Caucasian Center of Peace Initiatives – disseminated a joint statement on the assassination of Armenian officer Gurgen Margarian by his Azerbaijani colleague in Budapest.

”We, similarly to all our compatriots, were greatly shattered by the barbarous murder of Armenia officer Gurgen Margarian by Azerbaijani peer Ramil Safarov. The tragic incident in Budapest provoke numerous thoughts: about the hate incitement towards Armenian in Azerbaijan that forms the moral and psychological ground for such crimes as well as about the connivance of certain international structures to the destructive policy in Baku, narrowing down the prospects of dialogue with Armenia.

At the same time the irresponsible statements by several Armenian political and public figures, the publications in media during the recent days cannot but cause our serious concern. In particular, the Chairman of the Standing Committee of Foreign Affairs of the RA National Assembly Airmen Rustamian, during the commemoration action for victims of Sumgait pogroms and the head of the Parliament faction of Republican Party Galust Sahakian during a briefing at NA on March 4, speaking about the assassin of Gurgen Margarian indulged into unacceptable generalizations to the address of Azerbaijan nation as such.

These statements by politicians of such a high rank, representing a governing political coalition, are all the more unacceptable since they can be qualified as an official position of ours state, can create new obstacles for the negotiations on the peaceful resolution of Karabagh conflict and the normalization of relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

The artificial intensification of anti-Armenian sentiment in Azerbaijan and its consequences are to be most strongly criticized, but they can in no way become a justification for dissemination of racist and chauvinist ideas, alien to our society.

However hard are our experiences related to Budapest tragedy, we call to display political reticence and hope that common sense and democratic values will remain guiding for our country”, the statement of the Armenian NGOs says.