Deputy head of presidential administration of Azerbaijan Mammadov harshly criticizes United States
Yesterday, the Deputy Head of Presidential Administration of Azerbaijan, head of foreign relations department Novruz Mammadov sailed against the U.S. ambassador in Azerbaijan Richard Morningstar and against U.S. as a whole. The list of accusations presented by Mammadov was quite lengthy.
According to the official, the U.S. ambassador makes attempts to cast a shadow on Baku-Moscow and Baku-Tehran relations and intervenes into internal affairs of Azerbaijan. The U.S., according to Mammadov, is not engaged in the settlement of Nagorno Karabakh conflict and assists the preparations of “Molotov cocktails” in Baku and so on.
As it is stated by the Azerbaijani news agency 1news.az, Mammadov declared that the interview given by U.S. ambassador to Azerbaijan Richard Morningstar to the Azerbaijani service of Radio Liberty is an intervention into internal affairs of Azerbaijan.
According to him, irrespective of the fact which country the ambassador represents, no one has a right to intervene into internal affairs of other state. “The following step of the ambassador grossly violates the paragraphs of Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations,” Mammadov said.
Referring to the U.S. ambassador’s statement that Ukrainian “Maidan” could be repeated in Azerbaijan, Mammadov said that the whole world knows who inspired the events in Ukraine. According to him, “Maidan” is the result of U.S policy and funding.
“The international media have published great number of materials concerning the issue. The published information included even such details as the amount of money spent by the Americans. “Molotov cocktails” which the Azerbaijani opposition youth planned to use in 2013, were as well made by the U.S. assistance. There are certain facts that prove it,” said Mammadov.
According to the Azerbaijani official, the ambassador, whoever he is, should engage into his own affairs. “The ambassador, of course, can present his own position, but cannot give us lessons using a didactic tone. He cannot give instructions of what to do or not to do,” he said.
According to Mammedov, someone is not satisfied with the “independent course” of Baku. Mammadov said that Azerbaijan currently has a conflict with Armenia and some forces press Baku to “achieve their own interest.” The official stated that currently Azerbaijan is a country, where stability and security are provided and that is not beneficial for certain forces. “Look what is happening in the world, it is not difficult to draw conclusions after watching for a while,” he said.
As the Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration of Azerbaijan said, today confrontations and wars continue in many countries and no result is achieved. “In Sudan, Mali, Libya, Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and currently in Ukraine…In Asia and Africa the leading states are doing whatever they want, they send their troops. In some other cases, for instance in Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict they limit themselves with recommendations only: sit down and decide everything by yourselves,” he said.
Novruz Mammadov as well stated, the U.S. ambassador makes attempts to cast a shadow on friendly relations between Baku and Russia and Baku and Iran. “Unlike the U.S., these countries attach great importance to their relations with Azerbaijan, appreciate them highly and try to deepen mutual relations even more,” he said. According to the official, this is not the first time; this kind of attempts took place earlier as well. “Unfortunately, such attempts in the West can be encountered quite frequently,” he said.
Mammadov also said that his meeting with the journalists is some sort of response to the U.S. ambassador. “Morningstar gave an interview, and I as an official give answer to him. However, I’m sure that there are other structures in Azerbaijan that can give their position on Morningstar’s statement,” he said.
The Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration as well states that the U.S. has not taken any steps for the settlement of Nagorno Karabakh conflict. “It’s already 20 years that the U.S., being a co-chair at the OSCE Minsk Group, is engaged as mediator in the settlement of Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno Karabakh conflict. Let’s ask what steps the country has taken to resolve the conflict?” Mammadov said noting that he as an official monitors these processes closely and can state that no steps have been taken so far.
“They tell us: You (the sides of the conflict – ed.) find the solution to the conflict yourselves and we’ll see.” Have there been any American officials, including the ambassador Morningstar, who at least for a single time strongly stated that this conflict should be resolved within the norms and principals of international law?” Mammadov said.
Mammadov stated that the U.S. president on March 2014 in his speeches on another issue repeated for 30 times that international law shouldn’t be violated and one needs to follow its principles. “That’s what we cannot understand,” said the Azerbaijani official noting that the U.S. supports Armenia, who “violates that very international law.”
As Novruz Mammadov said the U.S. annually provides its assistance to Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh, the amount of which has already reached to $2 billion. Mammadov said that in 2009 by the initiative of the U.S. Switzerland held talks between Turkey and Armenia. “The goal of the abovementioned though veiled under the pretext of removing Yerevan under Russia’s influence, was to help Armenia,. At the same time, it was planned to drive a wedge into Azerbaijani-Turkish relations,” he said noting that an analogous attempt was as well made last year.
The Deputy Head of the Azerbaijani President’s Administration said that Morningstar’s statement coincide with the statement of OSCE Minsk Group U.S Co-chair James Warlick, who wrote in Twitter that the conflict should be settled between Azerbaijan and Nagorno Karabakh.
Novruz Mammadov stated that the ambassador Morningstar in his interview spoke about the human rights and democracy when as a result of Karabakh war “more than 1 million Azerbaijanis became refugees.”
“However, the U.S. avoids statements about human rights of these people. But when one single, individual case occurs, the U.S. immediately give orders to the NGOs funded by itself to voice about that everywhere, thus damaging the image of Azerbaijan,” Mammadov said.
On its turn, the U.S. embassy to Azerbaijan has denied Mammadov’s statements. As it is stated by the Azerbaijani news agency Turan, the press service of the embassy stated that “Novruz Mammadov’s assertions don’t correspond to reality.”