Official representative of State Department said American NGOs “operate within extremely tight guidelines.”

Victoria Nuland commented on recent Azerbaijani governments’ claims to the National Democratic Institute office in Azerbaijan and accusations of illegal fundings of the opposition groups.

“I don’t have any information on that particular assertion by the government. I don’t know whether it happened in the last couple of days. We’ll check into it. But as you know, all of our U.S.-funded democracy NGOs operate within extremely tight guidelines,” she said.

She assured the NGOs don’t fund any particular party or any particular ideological approach.

“They fund the process of democratic elections and party building in an evenhanded manner across the political spectrum.”