US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has conveyed her regret to Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev over leaked US diplomatic cables that compared him to a mafia boss from 'The Godfather' films. In her telephone call on Wednesday, Clinton 'reiterated to President Aliyev that the US relationship with Azerbaijan remains strong,' Clinton spokesman Philip Crowley told reporters. 'And she took the opportunity to convey her regret for the WikiLeaks disclosures,' he added. When asked what Aliyev's response was to her expression of regret for the cables leaked by the whistle-blower website WikiLeaks, Crowley replied: 'He simply indicated that he did not think that alleged cables would affect our long-term relationship.' Crowley said 'Azerbaijan remains a key partner of the United States,' something the secretary also stressed when she visited Baku last July. Azerbaijan works with the United States as a member of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) coalition in Afghanistan and also cooperates on counter-terrorism, he said. One of the leaked memos suggested that Aliyev, who succeeded his father Heydar Aliyev as president of ex-Soviet Azerbaijan in 2003, had become 'increasingly authoritarian' at home while conducting a more pragmatic foreign policy. 'This divergence of approaches... has led some observers to compare the Aliyevs with the fictional 'Corleones' of Godfather fame,' said the memo dated September 2009 and published by WikiLeaks. The memo alleged the Azerbaijani president had created an elaborate patronage network and 'strong armed' opponents, and thus 'the Aliyev administration has developed an 'organized crime' image in some quarters, leading some analysts to see Ilham Aliyev at times in a mafia-like role.' Aliyev's office has described the release of the cables by WikiLeaks as an 'open provocation.' It also denied that the he had made statements to a US diplomat questioning the authority of the Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev. 'The thoughts and opinions attributed by the website to the president of the Azerbaijani Republic Ilham Aliyev absolutely do not reflect reality and are absolutely unfounded,' the president's press office said in a written statement. 