Azernews.Az

Azerbaijan's minister of internal affairs will chair the CIS Interior Ministers' Council in accordance with the established order, and Armenia's transferring those powers to Russia has no legal basis, a source at the office of BKBOP, a body coordinating the fight against crime in CIS states, told Russian RIA Novosti news agency.

Earlier on Monday Armenian police sent a message to the delegates of the upcoming meeting of the CIS Interior Ministers Council in Baku to protest at the extradition from Hungary and immediate pardon of Ramil Safarov -- an Azerbaijani army officer who had been serving a life sentence in Hungary for killing an Armenian officer in Budapest in 2004 -- and declared its refusal to participate in the meeting. According to its press service, the Armenian police chief transfers chairmanship of the Council to the Russian interior minister.

"According to the regulations of the CIS Interior Ministers' Council, the transfer of authority of the board head is implemented by rotation in the Latin alphabet. So, after Armenia, the chairmanship goes to Azerbaijan," the source said.

"The transfer of authority can only be carried out at the board meeting. Another format is not envisioned. Therefore, the decision to transfer the powers to the Interior Minister of Russia by Armenia does not meet the regulations of the Council and is unlikely to entail any legal stature," the source told RIA Novosti.

The source noted that in the case of absence of Armenian police representatives at the meeting, a report summarizing the work of the board is likely to be presented by the director of BKBOP, police colonel-general Nikolai Ovchinnikov.