Azernews.Az

The Armenian leadership will be responsible for any provocation of Armenian terrorists against Azerbaijani citizens or diplomats, Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry spokesman Elman Abdullayev told reporters on Wednesday.

Armenia and the Armenian diaspora have been stirring uproar and trying to turn international public opinion against Azerbaijan over last week's extradition to his home country and pardoning of Ramil Safarov, an Azerbaijani military officer who had been serving a life sentence in Hungary for killing an Armenian officer in Budapest in 2004.

Armenian terrorist organizations, inspired by the provocative and aggressive position of the Armenian government, threaten diplomatic missions and citizens of Azerbaijan abroad.

A document sent by the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA), a terror group that has been largely inactive for the past decades, received on Monday by the embassy of Azerbaijan in Hungary, indicates as a target Azerbaijani diplomats, Azerbaijani students studying abroad, businessmen, activists of diaspora organizations, and claims they will be killed.

"ASALA is a worldwide known terrorist organization that has killed many people," Abdullayev said.

Azerbaijan, according to the ministry spokesman, has instructed its diplomatic missions to appeal to the intelligence bodies of the host country in the event of any threat to Azerbaijani diplomats.

"Statements of the Armenian government, full of threats and aggression, show that the Armenian authorities are sponsors of terrorism," Abdullayev said. "Yerevan's hysteria pursues only one purpose - populism and election propaganda."