Azerbaijan, Baku, 7 May / Trend corr I. Alizade/ The US Embassy in Azerbaijan and the Azerbaijani political parties discussed where and how the $3mln, allotted by the United States to enable democratic and transparent elections in Azerbaijan, will be spent. "Seven opposition leaders and a representative of the governing New Azerbaijan Party (NAP) participated in the meeting with US Ambassador Anne Derse," MP Sabir Rustamkhanli, Chairman of Civil Solidarity Parity, who also was in attendance, said to Trend on 7 May.
" USA allotted $3mln to make presidential elections in Azerbaijan go in a democratic and transparent way," Derse said last week. Azerbaijan will hold its presidential elections on 15 October.
"The meeting was initiated by the US Ambassador. It discussed the issues on how the money will be spent," Rustamkhanli said.
The chairmen of Civil Solidarity Party, Musavat, Democratic Party of Azerbaijan, Umid, Popular Front, Liberal parties, the president of For Azerbaijan public forum and deputy executive secretary of New Azerbaijan Party took part in the meeting from opposition held several days ago.
"The opposition parties protested against allocation of certain part of the resources to the ruling party," Rustamkhanli said.
Jonathan Henik, the head of Public Affairs Office of the U.S. Embassy in Azerbaijan confirmed that the meeting was held.
"The meeting was held, and resources of the United States for the presidential elections in Azerbaijan were discussed," the diplomat said.
According to Henik, the political parties will not be allocated direct financial aid from these resources. "Training will be held for the representatives of the political parties out of the allotted $3mln. This issue was largely discussed in the meeting," he said.
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