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 EU countries have criticised "strategic partner" Azerbaijan for making a national hero out of an axe-murderer, writes Andrew Rettman in an article titled “Axe murder complicates EU-Azerbaijan love affair” on EUobserver.com website.
“On 19 February 2004 during a Nato seminar at a military school in Budapest, he walked into the bedroom of a sleeping Armenian soldier, hit him 16 times with an axe and partly decapitated his dead body. On 31 August this year, Hungary put Azerbaijani lieutenant Ramil Safarov on a plane to Baku where President Ilham Aliyev pardoned him, promoted him to the rank of major and gave him eight years of back pay,” writes the author, noting that “speaking in the context of a 20-year-long ethnic conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, a senior Azerbaijani official the same day told state media that Safarov had "defended his country's honour and dignity" in butchering the 25-year-old victim.”

“The EU on Monday (3 September) joined Russia and the US in criticising Aliyev's behaviour. Russia's foreign minister earlier on Monday said he is "deeply concerned" and that the actions "run counter" to peace efforts. The White House back on 31 August said it had conveyed its "disappointment" to Aliyev,” says the article.
EU foreign relations spokeswoman, Maja Kocjanic, told press in Brussels: "We are particularly concerned with the impact the developments might have on the wider region."

“The developments are unwelcome for all parties involved. Hungary was already trying to improve its image as one of the sick men of Europe after Orban's recent attempt to gain political control of the central bank, courts and media. The EU and Russia's mild rebukes come amid their competing efforts to get Azerbaijani gas flowing into EU-bound or Russia-bound pipelines in the next few years. The US rebuke comes amid its aim to use Azerbaijan to help withdraw its soldiers from Afghanistan in 2014,” says the article.

"This actually embarasses countries which are engaged with Azerbaijan and makes it harder for the West to look the other way. It's [glorification of Safarov] is so over the top, it actually reminds me of North Korea and Turkmenistan under [former leader] Turkmenbashi," Richard Giragosian, a Yerevan-based analyst who used to advise the Pentagon and the CIA, told this website.