The diplomat, speaking at the Baltimore Council of Foreign Affairs before the heads of local communities, commented policy of the United States in regard with Azerbaijan. He said: "The United States continues to press Azerbaijan on advancing political and economic reforms, and on trying to peacefully end its conflict with Armenia; we cooperate in the field of security."

"Azerbaijan is an example of a country where our rhetoric, our objectives, meet hard reality," Fried underlined.

Commenting this idea, Fried characterized such countries as the countries, "which are a kind of halfway stage - not vicious dictatorships, not fully democratic all the time," AzerTAg informs.

Touching upon the last year parliament elections, he said that the results of exit poll and official sources, we can say, coincided. In some districts there were irregularities, and the other results appeared exactly right.

The Assistant Secretary of State in his remarks also dwelt on the American-European cooperation in Balkans, in the Eastern Europe and Eurasia, as well as in the Near East and Iran. He said: "The 60-year American policy in the Near East, sacrificing safety for human freedoms did not justify itself."