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Armenian's Ambassador to Iran Grigor Arakelian condemned Baku for pardoning Azeri officer Ramil Safarov who axed Armenian officer Gurgen Margaryan to death years ago, and warned that the move undermines the process of talks between the two neighboring countries over the Nagorno-Karabakh region, the Iranian Fars news agency reported.

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.

Speaking to FNA on Monday, the Armenian envoy to Tehran pointed to the ongoing talks between Yerevan and Baku over the Nagorno-Karabakh region, and said, "This move by the government of Azerbaijan shows that they are not interested in the continuation of the negotiations and are demonstrating their intolerance towards a nation and its rights to exist."

"The Azeri government's action to pardon the killer and make him a hero is a step towards undermining the negotiation process," the Armenian envoy underscored.