U.S. Embassy: statements of Azerbaijani officials are false

U.S. Embassy on October 17 issued a new statement in which it denies the allegations made by the official Baku on the offer by U.S. diplomats to the authorities to agree on the results of the presidential election.

"There have been widespread reports, including the statement of the Azerbaijani Presidential Administration Head Ramiz Mehdiyev that the U.S. offered to secretly agree on the results of the election for the purpose of giving a positive assessment of the elections, and the interview from the Presidential Administration official Elnur Aslanov. The statement by the official representative of the U.S. State Department confirms that these allegations are absolutely false. We will not discuss the contents of a private diplomatic meeting. Disclosure of such meetings is unacceptable," the statement by the U.S. Embassy said.

It should be noted that on October 14 Mehdiyev in an interview with pro-government media said that the representatives of the State Department suggested the authorities to announce in advance the voting for the election of Ilham Aliyev with 74-75 percent of the electorate, and 25 percent of the representative of the opposition National Council. In this case, according to Mehdiyev, the Americans promised to give a positive assessment of the elections.

On October 17 a representative of the presidential administration of Azerbaijan Aslanov said that the proposal came personally from the U.S. Ambassador Richard Morningstar.

In turn, the Ministry of Defense of Azerbaijan declared recognition of Ilham Aliyev's victory by the U.S. ambassador during his confidential meeting with the head of the agency Safar Abiyev.

After refuting from Morningstar the Defense Ministry stated that if the embassy would insist, the Ministry can provide audio with Morningstar's speech. -06D -