BAKU, Azerbaijan, January 9. Azerbaijan is worldwide recognized as a tolerant country, veteran and honorary officer of the security agencies of Azerbaijan, Colonel Azer Garayev told Trend, commenting on the report of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom.
"Azerbaijan has established equal opportunities for representatives of all religious denominations. Nonetheless, the US State Department is attempting to disregard these realities," said Garayev.
Garayev noted that the Armenian lobby is behind anti-Azerbaijani statements and reports in the US in most cases.
"The US State Department report is not an exception in this regard. It was prepared by an Armenian nationalist, one of the leaders of the Armenian Assembly of the US Daniela Ashbakhyan. This is one of the reasons why the report contains biased views regarding Azerbaijan," he said.
He noted that representatives of religious confessions in Azerbaijan, and people of different faiths sharply condemned this biased act by the US.
"They voiced the actual situation in Azerbaijan. There are enough of their interviews on this matter for national and foreign media," Garayev said.
According to him, the State Department, on the one hand, points to non-existent problems in its report and, on the other hand, ignores obvious facts.
"For some reason, the US State Department does not want to see that Armenia has kept the territory of Azerbaijan under occupation for almost 30 years and destroyed and vandalized religious monuments," Garayev added.
Garayev also emphasized that the safety of its citizens is a key concern for the Azerbaijani state.
"We have witnessed more than once that certain radical groups and their patrons, under the cover of religion, tried to create a threat to the Azerbaijani government and erode its security. All these attempts were immediately stopped thanks to the vigilance of Azerbaijani security bodies, and this will continue to be the case. The fight against religious radicalism and extremism in our country will always be at a high level. The US State Department should not mislead the international community with its biased reports," he concluded.
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