Azernews.Az

WASHINGTON D.C. – A senior US official has said relations between the United States and Azerbaijan are characterized by a combination of sustainability and development.

Addressing a conference in Washington titled "US-Azerbaijan Relations: State of the ‘Strategic Partnership’" on Tuesday, US Special Envoy for Eurasian Energy Richard Morningstar said the Obama administration had never aimed to lower the level of its good relations with Azerbaijan, which have a long-standing record.

Morningstar recalled bilateral cooperation as part of the project on the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) main export pipeline exporting Azerbaijani oil, saying that Azerbaijan remains a strategic country for Washington in the energy sector, as well as on other bilateral and multilateral issues. He added: "The US administration’s policy has always been to diversify sources of energy and energy supply routes in the Caspian region and Central Asia."

Morningstar added that the US State Department has no diplomat that would be so highly skilled as Matthew Bryza to take the post of US ambassador to Azerbaijan.

The post has been vacant since July 2009. The White House nomination has faced roadblocks in the legislature due to the opposition of several senators. Bryza, who has a near-22-year-long diplomatic career, served as deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs and represented the U.S. on the OSCE’s Minsk Group talks on settling the Armenia-Azerbaijan Upper (Nagorno) Karabakh conflict.

The conference on US-Azerbaijan relations was organized by the Jamestown Foundation and the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute. Leading US political scientist and former National Security Adviser to the US President Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jamestown Foundation President Glen Howard, Jamestown Foundation Senior Fellow Vladimir Socor, Azerbaijani Presidential Center for Strategic Studies Director Elkhan Nuriyev, and Central-Asia Caucasus Institute Chairman Frederick Starr addressed the event.