ArmInfo.Senator Bob Menendez, a leading Democrat in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, called on the US ambassador to Azerbaijan, Earl Litzenberger, to insist that President Ilham Aliyev refrain from militant rhetoric and actions that threaten the world on the line of contact.
According to the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA), during the hearings of the Committee, the senator asked the diplomat what steps were being taken in order for Baku to abandon the threatening behavior. Litzenberger replied that the United States works in three directions: non-use of force, respect for territorial integrity and the right to self-determination. In addition, as the US ambassador pointed out, the co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group condemn "any violence and any threat of violence on the contact line, without special mention of the attacks of Azerbaijan." In response to Senator Menendez's subsequent question about whether he, as the US ambassador to Azerbaijan, "urges Azerbaijanis to retreat from any threatening behavior that violates peace on the line of contact," Litzenberger replied, "This is a fair statement, sir." Senator Menendez also inquired whether US assistance to Azerbaijan in the area of security should be reduced in connection with human rights violations, Litzenberger replied that the State Department would be "very careful in this matter to ensure that nothing that the US does or provides [with point of view of US assistance in the field of security] to Azerbaijan, does not undermine efforts to achieve a peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. "
According to the ambassador, US assistance in ensuring security in Azerbaijan will continue to include human rights education. This aspect, as he pointed out, has raised heightened concern since the time of the Safarov scandal. Recall that Ramil Safarov is an Azerbaijani officer who killed a sleeping Armenian officer Gurgen Margaryan with an ax in 2004, with whom he was trained under the NATO Partnership for Peace program in Budapest. In 2006, Safarov was sentenced to life imprisonment by a Hungarian court. However, on August 31, 2012, he was secretly extradited to Azerbaijan, where he was met as a national hero. On the same day he was pardoned by the decree of the President of Azerbaijan and received as a gift an apartment and the rank of major, with the payment of salary for eight years. The decision to transfer Ramil Safarov to Azerbaijan led to the rupture of diplomatic relations between Armenia and Hungary. The release and glorification of Safarov was condemned by numerous representatives of international organizations.