Your trusted source

Relations between Azerbaijan and the United States are very important and powerful, but not everything is rosy, stated the U.S.
Ambassador to Azerbaijan Richard Morningstar, as reports the Azerbaijani news agency "Turan", speaking in Washington on the eve of the conference entitled "Azerbaijan: Looking into the Future."

According to him, the situation in Ukraine, proves the importance of resolving the conflict in Nagorno Karabakh, which creates instability in the region.

"Presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan need to undertake concrete steps to resolve the conflict. This would be impossible without the full co-operation with Russia. We also support efforts directed to strengthening confidence-building measures and dialogue between the peoples of Azerbaijan and Armenia, which may help to prepare the two nations to reach peace," said Richard Morningstar.

The Ambassador also expressed concern about the arrest of the famous Azerbaijani journalist Rauf Mirkadirov and about the investigation started against the human rights activist Leyla Yunus and her husband Arif Yunusov.

"All of them have been active participants in the process of promoting dialogue and confidence-building measures. The activities of the Azerbaijani authorities have chilling effect on any contacts that appear between Armenians and Azerbaijanis. We believe this is wrong," he said.

At the briefing held on April 29 (http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/2014/04/225362.htm) Jen Psaki the spokesperson of the State of department called on the Azerbaijani authorities to respect the free and pluralistic media. Touching upon the case of Avaz Zeynalli, the editor of the Azerbaijani independent paper Khural Psaki noted that Zeynalli’s reporting exposed corruption within the government and human rights and media freedom. She called on the authorities to release the journalist. Committee to Protect Journalists spoke in defense of the journalist too.