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The Hungarian postal service, Magyar Posta, had nothing to do with a celebration of the 90th anniversary of the birth of Azerbaijan’s strongman leader Heydar Aliyev, the National Development Ministry said on Monday, The Budapest Times reports.

As the article says, the denial came after local news websites had picked up Azeri media reports that the late Aliyev had been made the subject of a set of commemorative stamps.

“The English-language Azeri website news.az reported on 8 May, citing the official news agency AzerTAc, that the stamps would illustrate the life of the “national leader”, who would have been 90 last Friday if he had lived ten years longer,” The Budapest Times reads.

It reads that the stamps were being issued jointly by Hungarian Magyar Posta and the Azeri embassy in Budapest, the website reported.

Not so, says Budapest. Magyar Posta has issued no birthday stamps either with the Azeri embassy or independently, the ministry said in a statement.

“The Aliyev commemorative set was issued at the personal expense of the Azeri embassy, entirely without the cooperation of Magyar Posta,” they said.

Однако, как пишет «The Budapest Times» премьер-министр Венгрии, и не только он, стремится к более тесным связям с богатой нефтью страной, несмотря на то, что согласно докладу «Amnesty International», 2012 ознаменовался в Азербайджане новой волной репрессий и преследований против критиков правительства.

However Prime “The Budapest Times” reads that Minister Viktor Orbán’s government is hardly alone in forging closer ties with the oil- and gas-rich nation despite what Amnesty International described in a 2012 report as “a new wave of repression and intimidation” against critics of the government.

The article also recalls that Budapest sparked strong international “concern” last year when Ramil Safarov the convicted murderer of an Armenian army officer was transferred to Baku only to receive an immediate pardon from Azerbaijan’s president.