As Ukrinform reports, Reuters writes about this, citing the words of Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Ceyhan Bayramov.
It is noted that the reason for this decision was the alleged attempt by the US administration to use USAID to promote its own political agenda.
According to Bayramov, Baku temporarily suspended cooperation with USAID back in June 2014. “Azerbaijan began criticizing USAID in late 2023 after the agency’s head, Samantha Power, said that Azerbaijan’s military operation to reclaim Nagorno-Karabakh “forced more than a hundred thousand people to flee their homes and move to neighboring Armenia,” Reuters reminds.
Following Power's statement, Hikmet Khaliyev, the foreign policy advisor to the president of Azerbaijan, said that "there is no longer a place for USAID in Azerbaijan."
Azerbaijan is not the first post-Soviet state to abandon cooperation with USAID. In 2012, USAID's activities were suspended in Russia, and in 2023, in occupied Abkhazia.
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