Yerevan /Mediamax/. The United States continue to urge Azerbaijani authorities to respect the human rights and fundamental freedoms of all.

U.S. Department of State spokesperson Matthew Miller stated about this asked whether Assistant Secretary James O’Brien’s trip to Azerbaijan is departure from the announced policy that Washington will not do “business as usual” with Azerbaijan.

“No, not at all. We never said that we’re not going to continue to engage with Azerbaijan. That would be against our interests as the United States of America. We think it would be against the interests of peace and security in the region for us to just drop all of our diplomatic engagements with Azerbaijan. We continue to engage directly with both Azerbaijan and Armenia to make clear – for example, in the case of Azerbaijan – where we have concerns. We’ve been concerned with the recent trend of detaining journalists. We continue to urge them to respect the human rights and fundamental freedoms of all. And we also continue to engage with them to urge them to seek a durable peace with Armenia.”