Azerbaijan, Baku, July 2 / Trend V.Zhavoronkova /
U.S. congressmen Solomon Ortiz, Michael McMahon, Michael Conaway, Bill Shuster, Sue Myrick and Shelley Moore Capito support Matthew Bryza's candidacy as new U.S. ambassador to Azerbaijan. The politicians made the statement this week in a letter written to Congress.
"Azerbaijan is a strategic partner to the United States both in Afghanistan and on world markets. We ask that you move expeditiously to put the ambassador (Bryza) in the U.S. Embassy in Baku," they wrote in the letter.
They also asked Congress to expedite Bryza's appointment and expressed their satisfaction with his nomination to the post by U.S. President Barack Obama May 25.
There has been no U.S. ambassador to Azerbaijan for nearly one year.
The letter stressed that Bryza's immense experience in the region is an advantage.
The congressmen also wrote that Azerbaijan was among the first Muslim countries to join the United States in the War on Terror, sending troops to both Afghanistan and Iraq.
A career diplomat, Bryza has worked at the U.S. State Department for 22 years. He is well acquinated with Azerbaijan's political elite. Bryza served as the U.S. co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group until August 2009, which seeks to resolve the territorial dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan. He also served as the director for Europe and Eurasia at the White House's National Security Council and a special assistant to the president and the secretary of state for energy diplomacy in the Caspian Sea. He also coordinated U.S. efforts to settle the Georgian-Abkhazian and Georgian-South Ossetian conflicts.