Azerbaijan president’s pardon of axe murderer who killed Armenian reignites long-running territorial dispute.
Long standing tensions between Baku and Yerevan flared anew after Ilham Aliyev, the president of Azerbaijan, pardoned an axe murderer convicted of killing an Armenian army officer.
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Last month, Ramil Safarov returned to Azerbaijan to a hero’s welcome on returning home after serving eight years in prison in Hungary, where the murder took place.
Azerbaijan says condemnation over the pardon of Safarov distorts the facts behind a long-running territorial dispute.
Azerbaijan and Armenia have been fierce rivals since a war in 1988 over the disputed region of Nagorno Karabakh.
About 30,000 people were killed and a million, mostly Azerbaijanis, were driven from their homes.
Russia brokered a ceasefire in 1994 that left Nagorno Karabakh in Armenian hands, but the two sides have never signed a peace deal.
Al Jazeera’s Robin Forestier-Walker reports from the Baku, Azerbaijan’s capital.
Al Jazeera