2023-11-09 11:50:00
On Wednesday, the US Senate supported President Joe Biden’s nomination of career diplomat Mark Libby for the post of US ambassador to Azerbaijan, Turan’s Washington correspondent reported.
There has been no US ambassador to Azerbaijan since the summer of last year, when Lee Litsenberger left this post. Biden nominated Libby last May, but the Senate has not confirmed his nomination since then.
“Although I don’t know him personally, he has a lot of experience, he is a career diplomat, and this will help him in Baku,” said former US Ambassador to Baku Richard Kozlarich (1994-1997) in a conversation with Turan’s reporter.
During the hearings in the Senate on June 14, Libby faced questions about peace talks regarding Karabakh, human rights, and security cooperation between the United States and Azerbaijan.
According to him, peace in Karabakh will allow Washington and Baku to raise cooperation to a new level: “… Cooperation in the field of combating terrorism, border, energy and maritime security will serve the national interests and security of the United States. … I will redouble our efforts in these areas.”
According to Libby, democracy and human rights are the foundation of US foreign policy and “not only because they reflect our values, but also because they prove to be the best foundation for peace and prosperity.”
“If confirmed, I undertake to hold a respectful but very sincere dialogue with a wide range of Azerbaijani leaders and citizens and to defend these values, rights and freedoms in Azerbaijan and the wider region,” he said in June.
Libby most recently served as a faculty advisor to the State Department at the National War College in Washington, D.C. He will come to Baku in the coming weeks.
Before that, Libby was the deputy head of the US mission to the European Union in Brussels. He worked as a political adviser in the US missions in Warsaw, Nicosia and Baghdad.
At the State Department, Libby was deputy director of crisis management, deputy director of the Central European Affairs Office, director of the Southern European Affairs Office, and director of the Diplomatic Service Institute.
He knows Polish and French.
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