U.S. Department of State Spokesperson Matt Miller briefs on the latest developments in U.S. foreign policy and current events.
QUESTION: My name is Haykaram Nahapetyan, and I’m a reporter from Armenia. Matt, last week Secretary traveled to Türkiye – Türkiye, in modern terms – and I was wondering if the relations between Armenia and Turkey, the process between Armenia and Azerbaijan also been brought up in his negotiation with Turkish counterpart. And also question regarding the fate of Armenian POWs and politicians that are in the prisons of Azerbaijan. At this point, actually the American lawyer of one of them Jared Genser, the lawyer of Ruben Vardanyan, says his access to Azerbaijan is being denied. He’s not allowed to see the person whom he’s supposed to defend. So I was wondering if you have any comments on this and if there is anything that the administration or the embassy to Azerbaijan can do to make sure that the basic rights of Armenians in the prisons of Azerbaijan are protected?
MR MILLER: Yeah. So I’m not going to talk about the private diplomatic conversations that we had when the Secretary was in the region last week. But I can you that, of course, relation – the relationship between Türkiye between Armenia is something that we regularly engage with officials from both countries on, and I think best to leave it at that. When it comes to the status of prisoners being held inside Azerbaijan – and without speaking to any one particular case – you have seen us consistently call for Azerbaijan to respect the human rights and fundamental freedoms of all persons inside its country, including prisoners. You have seen us take actions when we have not seen Azerbaijan respecting the fundamental human rights of all persons inside Azerbaijan, and we’ll continue to pursue that policy.
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