President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has received credentials of the newly appointed Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States of America Earle Litzenberger.

Earle Litzenberger reviewed a guard of honor.

The ambassador presented his credentials to President Ilham Aliyev.

President Ilham Aliyev then spoke with the ambassador.

Earle Litzenberger said he is pleased to be appointed as the ambassador to Azerbaijan and noted that he will spare no efforts to further develop relations between the two countries during his tenure.

President Ilham Aliyev congratulated Earle Litzenberger on his appointment as the ambassador to Azerbaijan, and expressed confidence that the Azerbaijan-US bilateral ties will continue to expand and develop during his tenure.

President Ilham Aliyev and Earle Litzenberger hailed the successful development of Azerbaijan-US relations.

The ambassador noted that the US government highly appreciates Azerbaijan`s contribution to the peacekeeping operations in Afghanistan, as well as its logistics and transportation support for the operation.

They exchanged views over political ties, energy security, trade and democratic development issues, and stressed the importance of developing relations in the humanitarian sphere as well as people-to-people ties.

The sides also discussed the issues related to the settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, and President Ilham Aliyev pointed out Azerbaijan`s position which is based on the norms and principles of international law and justice. The head of state underlined that Azerbaijan welcomes the recent statement of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs as well as their demand not to change the format of negotiations.

President Ilham Aliyev and Ambassador Earle Litzenberger discussed further development of Azerbaijan-US ties, and noted the significance of broadening the scope of the bilateral relations to include more areas.