(MENAFN- Trend News Agency) BAKU, Azerbaijan, June 15 . Baku and Islamabad
have full mutual understanding on how to move forward, President of
the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev said, while making a joint
press statement with Prime Minister of Pakistan Shehbaz Sharif,
trend reports.
Statement by President Ilham Aliyev
Statement by President Ilham Aliyev
- Dear Mr. Prime Minister, my dear brother.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Azerbaijan.
I`m very glad to host my dear brother, Prime Minister of
Pakistan, in our country. We have relations, which are relations
between the brothers. Our contacts with the Prime Minister – they
have a regular character. We met last year twice on the sidelines
of the international events. I`m grateful to the Prime Minister
that he accepted my invitation to pay an official visit to our
country.
Relations between our countries are relations, which are based
on mutual history, culture, traditions, religion, solidarity and
mutual support. We are very grateful to Pakistan for support to
Azerbaijan during the times of occupation and during the 44 days of
Patriotic War of 2020.
Pakistan is the country, which did not establish diplomatic
relations with Armenia because of occupation. And this is a real
position of brothers. We are very grateful for that.
Today, I informed Mr. Prime Minister about ongoing negotiations
between Azerbaijan and Armenia on a peace agreement and the
prospects to sign this agreement I think are here. Armenia just
needs to demonstrate a political will and to put on paper what they
have already officially announced that Karabakh is Azerbaijan.
Azerbaijan always supports and will continue to support Pakistan
on the issue of Kashmir. We demonstrate this support and solidarity
in all international organizations. Of course, mutual support
unites our countries and our peoples even more.
People of Azerbaijan know very well, who was with us during the
times of 44 days war - it was Türkiye and Pakistan, which expressed
a strong political support to us.
Today, we discussed a broad range of issues of our bilateral
agenda as well as regional development and regional security
issues. We have full mutual understanding on how to move forward.
We agreed that soon several delegations from Azerbaijan will visit
Pakistan. One on trade and investment mission, another on issues
related to energy cooperation, and the third will address the
issues of cooperation in the defense industry.
We also agreed that we will work hard to enhance our mutual
trade. The step towards that will be the signing of a MoU to start
working on that and to work on the list of items, which will be
included into the list of preferential trade between our
countries.
Great opportunities in the area of energy whether its fossil
fuel projects or projects related to renewable sources of energy.
We also agreed today that we will increase the number of flights
between our cities, including flight between the capitals. So, that
was a very good result of today's meeting.
We see big potential in the area of education. Now we have 750
students from Pakistan studying in our universities, and just to
illustrate how rapidly this process goes, I just want to say that
last year there were only 100. And we hope to host more our young
brothers from Pakistan. And Azerbaijanis also studied in Pakistan –
they today in different areas already contribute to our
development.
We also discussed cooperation in the area of defense and defense
industry. As I already said we agreed to increase the number of
joint military exercises we had in the past. There is a need for
that. Because the situation in the world is changing, instability
areas are growing. Therefore, strong military capacity is a
guarantee for independence and territorial integrity.
For almost 30 years Azerbaijan was involved in the negotiations
with Armenia, which did not produce any result. Only our military
might and the spirit of Azerbaijani soldiers restored our
territorial integrity. So, we restored it not because of
negotiations or not because of some mediators. On the contrary,
negotiations and mediation efforts only left to freezing the
situation. But we did not agree with that. We restored our
territorial integrity and liberated our lands on the battlefield
sacrificing the lives of 3,000 our sons.
So, we know how international law works selectively. How
resolutions of the United Nations Security Council are not being
implemented. We both know that. And the guarantee for your
independence, territorial integrity, security and wellbeing of your
people is your economic, political and military capability. So, on
all these issues we have full mutual understanding. Pakistan and
Azerbaijan are countries, which always stand shoulder to shoulder.
And also an important factor is that our peoples - they share the
same views as the leaders. You can see in many parts of Baku
Pakistani flags. They have been installed here during the times of
the Second Karabakh War. And they are still here, despite the fact
that the war ended two and a half years ago. So, this is the really
attitude of the people, and we see the same from our brothers from
Pakistan.
Mr. Prime Minister, once again, I'd like to express gratitude
for visiting us. I always enjoy meeting with you and discussing our
bilateral agenda. I also want to congratulate the people of
Pakistan with such a great leader as Prime Minister Sharif - the
person with a great vision, experience, knowledge and commitment to
the development of the country, strengthening its independence. And
under your leadership, I'm sure the brotherly people of Pakistan
will achieve even more heights, even more successes and more
achievements.
I wish you and your people prosperity, happiness and peace.
Thank you.
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