Your trusted source

Cooperation between the U.S. and Azerbaijan is based on three principles: democracy, energy and security. And the United States will never sacrifice democracy to the energy interests, stated former U.S. Ambassador to Azerbaijan Matthew Bryza in an interview with the Azerbaijani news portal "Haqqin.az."

"Democracy and human rights issues are our values. We value them and wish that our partners respected those views too. And we have never sacrificed and will never sacrifice democracy to oil and energy interests. All of these three directions are important for us, and we continue working with Azerbaijan on these issues," he said.

Commenting on the recent statement of Ramiz Mehdiyev, the head of the Azerbaijani Presidential Administration saying that the U.S. Ambassador to Azerbaijan Richard Morningstar had allegedly demanded that the government of Azerbaijan attributed to opposition candidate 25% of the votes, Bryza stated that "it is impossible."

"No American diplomat in any country in the world will ever say such a thing. If we advocate the idea of democracy and the rule of law around the world, how can we break these principles by ourselves?" stated the former ambassador.

According to him, it’s not the first year that Richard Morningstar is in diplomacy, and he would never say such a thing.

"When I was the ambassador, I also always raised democracy issues with the leaders of your country. Maybe someone from the U.S. diplomats might have said that according to their information, the opposition could get 25% of the votes, but to demand that those figures were attributed to this or that candidate? It's impossible," added Bryza.

On October 9 presidential election were held in Azerbaijan during which incumbent President Ilham Aliyev received 84.58% of votes. Jamil Hasanli, a single candidate from the opposition National Council of Democratic Forces, was on the second place. He scored 5.54% of the vote.