Azernews.Az

The Azerbaijani government has strongly responded to a recent statement by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, which criticized the human rights situation in Azerbaijan.

In her statement issued last Friday on the occasion of the International Human Rights Day, Clinton mentioned Azerbaijan as one of the negative examples while speaking of rights abuses, alongside Zimbabwe.

Novruz Mammadov, the Presidential Administration’s head of foreign relations, said in an interview with Azerbaijan’s state news agency AzerTAj that the statement was "interesting for several reasons".

"First, I would like to stress that discussions on human rights, of course, are very important in today's world. And the desire to protect those rights is quite normal. However, are human rights divided into different categories on their significance?"

"If this issue is important for the U.S, why does the US Department of State keep silent on the issue of violating the rights of one million Azerbaijani refugees and internally displaced persons driven out of their lands as a result of Armenia's military aggression? Why doesn’t anyone make a serious statement on the issue?" Mammadov said.

The Presidential Administration official said it appears that there is "unnatural affection" for Armenia on the part of the U.S. "This is the attitude that America demonstrates, proving every time that it remains committed to this course," he said.

Mammadov said the U.S. kept silent even when the elections were grossly rigged in Armenia and 30 people were killed during the ensuing protests.

"Even if there are hundreds of political prisoners in Armenian jails and the authorities shut down all media outlets and declare a state of emergency, the U.S. will keep silent," he said. "It seems that the U.S. has some serious commitments to the Armenian diaspora. This prompts both media outlets and officials to issue negative assessments on Azerbaijan, but speak of Armenia only positively."

Azerbaijan and Armenia have been locked in conflict for two decades. The two countries waged a war in the early 1990s. Armenian armed forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan’s territory since then. A ceasefire accord was signed in 1994, but peace talks, brokered by the OSCE Minsk Group co-chaired by the United States, Russia and France, have been largely fruitless so far.