In an article entitled, “A Hero’s Welcome for a Convicted Killer Reignites Tensions,” Ellen Bary of the New York Times’ Moscow bureau cited RSC Director Richard Giragosian, as part of a longer interview Giragosian provided on the wider implications from the crisis over the Azerbaijani pardon and promotion of Ramil Safarov, an Azerbaijani officer convicted of murdering an Armenian colleague during a NATO education course in Budapest, Hungary in 2004. Safarov was sentenced to life imprisonment by a Hungarian court but after a Hungarian decision to extradite him to Azerbaijan, the Azerbaijani president issued him an immediate pardon, followed by a promotion and a cash award.
According to the New York Times, the incident “threatens to end the lengthy peace process that has kept Azerbaijan and Armenia from sliding back into bloody conflict over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh.” The New York Times article went to note that “Safarov, who was a boy during the war with Armenia, embodies the hatred that has pooled deeply in the public as leaders have sat through rounds of faltering negotiations.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/05/world/europe/pardon-reignites-azerbaijan-armenia-tensions.html