Azerbaijan urged the United States on Sunday to help solve the dispute over the Nagorno-Karabakh Armenian enclave and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pressed its authoritarian government on human rights.
A U.S.-backed push for a rapprochement between Armenia and U.S. ally Turkey has hurt U.S. relations with the strategic and oil-rich country, which worries that its interests will suffer as a result.
Baku in April accused the United States of siding with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh, a Christian region which proclaimed independence after a war in the 1990s that killed some 30,000.
Hosting Clinton at his palatial summer residence on the Caspian Sea, Azeri President Ilham Aliyev made clear that his priority was Nagorno-Karabakh.
"This is a major problem for us and the major threat to regional security," Aliyev told Clinton.
"We want to find a resolution as soon as possible," he said, adding: "Our people are suffering."
As a result of the strains in the relationship, including the absence of a U.S. ambassador for more than a year, Baku threatened to reconsider its ties with the United States.
Strategically located between Russia and Iran, Azerbaijan has been a key supply route for U.S. troops in Afghanistan but ties have been frayed by multiple issues.
While seeking to improve relations and make some headway on Nagorno-Karabakh, Clinton also pressed Azerbaijan to show greater respect for civil liberties and said she had raised the case of two jailed opposition bloggers.
In a news briefing with her Azeri counterpart Elmar Mamedyarov, Clinton said the U.S. was ready to help Azerbaijan and Armenia reach an agreement on Nagorno-Karabakh.
But she warned: "Ultimately the future of any one nation or the future of this region is up to the people themselves. They have to make the hard decisions."
"The United States cannot resolve the conflicts in this region but we can be a partner and a supporter and an advocate," she told the Azeri foreign minister.
Azerbaijan wants Nagorno-Karabakh back, if necessary by force and the threat of war is never far away.
Last month, four ethnic Armenian troops and an Azeri soldier died in an exchange of fire near Nagorno-Karabakh.
GATES VISIT
Clinton is the second top official from Washington to visit Azerbaijan in a month, following Defense Secretary Robert Gates' early June trip designed to smooth ruffled feathers and to guarantee U.S. supply lines for Afghanistan.
Since 2001, military aircraft and supply trucks have crossed the country carrying U.S. and NATO forces and equipment to Afghanistan. The Pentagon wants to avoid problems that could slow Obama's 30,000-troop surge.
The strains ran so deep that Gates delivered a letter to Aliyev in June from President Barack Obama, who said he was aware of the "serious issues in our relationship" but was confident they could be addressed.
Speaking to civil society advocates, including bloggers, Clinton later said Azerbaijan had some way to go on respecting its citizens rights.
"While considerable progress has been made here, you know better than I there is work to be done," Clinton told about a dozen young Azeris. "There are still lots of challenges."
She told the Azeri foreign minister that the United States was "clear in encouraging and calling for more" progress in the area of human rights.
Clinton said she and Obama had received letters two Azeri bloggers who were sentenced last year to two and two and a half years in jail after a violent incident in a cafe in which the bloggers say they were the victims of an unprovoked attack.
The incident happened shortly after video blogger Adnan Hajizade posted his latest tongue-in-cheek swipe at authorities, in which he held a fake news conference dressed as a donkey.
Their imprisonment drew concern from the European Union and widespread criticism from rights groups, with Amnesty International saying the bloggers were convicted on fabricated charges.
