(MENAFN- AzerNews) The 31st Arab League Summit has been held in Algiers, the
capital city of the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria.
President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev attended
the opening ceremony of the event as a Guest of Honor at the
invitation of the President of the People's Democratic Republic of
Algeria Abdelmadjid Tebboune who hosts the 31st Arab League
Summit.
President of Algeria Abdelmadjid Tebboune welcomed President
Ilham Aliyev, the heads of state and government, and the heads of
delegation attending the Summit.
The Azerbaijani and Algerian presidents posed for official
photographs.
President of the Republic of Tunisia Kais Saied opened the
Summit and handed over the chairmanship of the organization to
President of the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria
Abdelmadjid Tebboune.
President of Algeria Abdelmadjid Tebboune, and Secretary General
of the Arab League Ahmed Aboul Gheit made speeches at the
event.
Then the floor was given to the President of Azerbaijan.
President Ilham Aliyev made a speech at the Summit.
Speech of President Ilham Aliyev
-Dear Mr. President of Algeria Abdelmadjid Tebboune,
Dear Mr. Secretary General of Arab League Ahmed Aboul Gheit
Dear heads of state and government,
Dear heads of delegations, ladies and gentlemen.
First of all, I would like to express deep gratitude to the
President of Algeria, and Secretary General of Arab League for
invitation. I consider it as a sign of friendship, as a sign of
brotherhood. It is a big honor for me to be present today at this
important Summit and to demonstrate unity between our countries. I
am especially very glad to visit Algeria on this special day, the
day of national liberation, day of national dignity. I congratulate
the President, the government of Algeria, all the people of Algeria
on the occasion of this liberation day. Today I paid respect to the
memory of the martyrs. I visited the Memorial of Martyrs. I visited
the Museum of Moudjahid and was deeply impressed and shocked by
what I have seen. The brutality, mass atrocities committed by
France against the people of Algeria, something the world should
never forget. France conducted a terrible war against the Algerian
people for more than 130 years which resulted in the deaths of more
than one and a half million Algerians. Today, commemorating this
tragedy, we need to do everything in order to avoid these tragedies
in the future.
Relationship between the Arab League and Azerbaijan has special
dimension. This summer I had an honor to receive Secretary General
Mr. Aboul Gheit in Baku. We had broad discussions about our future
cooperation. Since 2006 Azerbaijan is an observer to the
organization and we want to expand our cooperation. Today I
participate at the Summit as the chair of Non-Aligned Movement but,
at the same time, we have very profound relationship with the
member states of Arab League. And I am sure that in the coming
years our cooperation will grow, we will have new dimension and new
dynamics. We pay a special importance to bilateral cooperation with
the members of Arab League and we highly value the mutual support
and solidarity between us. Azerbaijan is a country which also
suffered like Algeria from occupation for 30 years. Our lands were
occupied by Armenia, and during all these years of occupation we
always felt the support of our Arab brothers, we felt the support
of member states of the Organization of Islamic States. Azerbaijan,
in its turn, always in all international fora supported our Muslim
brothers. We contributed largely to Islamic Solidarity. 2017 was
declared in Azerbaijan the year of Islamic Solidarity and we hosted
the 4th Islamic Solidarity Games which transformed into a sporting
event, into a festival of solidarity and friendship.
As a chairman of the Non-Aligned Movement, Azerbaijan plays an
important role on the international arena. The Non-Aligned Movement
is the second largest international institution after the United
Nations, which unites 120 countries. Since 2019, Azerbaijan is a
chair of this institution and we have been elected by a unanimous
decision of all member states, which demonstrates their high level
of support and respect to our position and our policy. Our
chairmanship was extended again by a unanimous decision until the
end of 2023 and we consider it as another sign of appreciation of
our policy. Our chairmanship coincided with the COVID-19 and we
took a very proactive stand on that. Azerbaijan provided financial
and humanitarian assistance to more than 80 countries with respect
to coronavirus. We organized a Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement,
we initiated a Special Session of the UN General Assembly devoted
to COVID-19, which was held in December 2020. All these initiatives
had one objective-the objective to help the countries, which are in
need, to help the countries and to mobilize resources, and to help
the countries, which cannot afford to acquire vaccines. As you
remember, dear colleagues, at the beginning of the pandemic, the
access to vaccines was the most critical issue. Some developed
countries of the West were acquiring the number of vaccines 5-10
times more than they needed, while countries which did not have
resources had to suffer. So, Azerbaijan was very vocal against
vaccine nationalism, against unfair distribution of vaccines and
that strengthened the support of the Non-Aligned Movement to our
position. We are planning to organize a Summit of the Non-Aligned
Movement next March, and I, using this opportunity, would like to
invite the members of Arab League, the heads of state and
government to participate in the Summit. Two years ago, Azerbaijan
put an end to almost 30 years of occupation by Armenia of almost 20
percent of our territory. Despite the decisions and resolutions of
the leading international institutions, Armenia ignored all these
decisions and resolutions and continued to illegally occupy almost
20 percent of our territory.
During the times of occupation, more than one million
Azerbaijanis became refugees and IDPs. Our people became the
subject of ethnic cleansing. Armenia committed a genocide of
Khojaly in 1992 which is now recognized by more than 10 countries.
UN Security Council adopted four resolutions demanding immediate
and unconditional withdrawal of Armenian troops from our
territories but these resolutions were never materialized. And this
leads to another important factor which is a mechanism of
implementation of resolutions of Security Council. In some cases,
resolutions of UN Security Council are being implemented within
days, but in our case they remained on paper for almost thirty
years. This is double standards, this is unacceptable. This is a
selective approach to the norms and principles of international law
and to obligations of the countries. Therefore, Azerbaijan as a
country, which suffered from injustice and occupation, is actively
working in order to contribute to the course of unification of
approaches to conflicts. All the conflicts must be treated from the
same position. There should not be double standards addressing the
conflicts. Occupation must be called an occupation. Two years ago,
Azerbaijan, as I said put an end to the conflict. We did it by
force. We used our right for self-defense, which is provided by the
Article 51 of the UN Charter, and we liberated our territory by
force. We defeated Armenia. Armenia had to capitulate. And now our
territories are free and we are back. And what we have seen as we
returned. We have seen total devastation and destruction of
territory, which is more than 10, 000 square km. It is equal to the
territory of some countries. Everything is destroyed-cities and
villages, buildings, historical monuments graves of our ancestors.
65 out of 67 mosques have been completely destroyed by Armenia
during the times occupation. This is a reflection of Islamafobic
essence of terrorist Armenian state.
Now we are restoring our cities and villages. We started a
program, which is called“Great Return”. We do it with our own
resources. Unfortunately, international donor organizations don't
help us. We do it on our own. Today, visiting the Museum of
Moudjahid, I was informed that during the French occupation France
planted more than 5 million landmines. It just reminded me of the
same, the same what we are suffering now. Armenia planted more than
1 million mines during the times of occupation and after the war
ended in November 2020, we have more than 260 Azerbaijanis who have
been killed or severely injured because of the landmines. We are
doing it ourselves. We will restore our lands ourselves and we are
already in the process. We see again solidarity from our brothers
from member states, from the Arab League. We see support in
international institutions and we are very grateful for that. As
the President of the brotherly Azerbaijan, brother to members of
the Arab League, as a chair of the NAM, I want to assure you that
we will do everything in order to strengthen our solidarity, our
unity. Once again I'd like to express gratitude to President and
Secretary General for this invitation. Once gain I'd like to say
that it is a great honor for me be able to address this
distinguished audience. I wish you and your people happiness,
prosperity and peace. Thank you.
***
Other heads of state and government, and heads of delegation
then addressed the Summit.
***
The Arab League was formed on March 22, 1945 by Egypt, Syria,
Lebanon, Iraq, Transjordan (now Jordan), Saudi Arabia, and Yemen.
Currently, the League has 22 members. The official headquarters of
the League is in Cairo.
Turkiye has the permanent observer status in the League.
---
Follow us on Twitter
