Chair of the Milli Majlis Sahiba Gafarova had a meeting with the visiting delegation led by Chairman of the European Parliament Foreign Affairs Committee David McAllister on 19 July.

Having welcomed the guests, Mrs Gafarova said she hoped that the discussions due in the course of their visit would help strengthen the ties between the European Union and Azerbaijan and between the Europarliament and the Milli Majlis alike.

Azerbaijan is interested in the progress of the relations with the EU and, in fact, this is one of the national foreign political priorities, according to Mrs Gafarova.

High-status visits and negotiations are essential for the advance in the relations, in which context Mrs Gafarova recalled the visit of the president of the EU Council Charles Michel to Azerbaijan in July 2021. On the other hand, the president of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev joined the 6^th summit of the EU Eastern Partnership in Brussels in December 2021 and revisited that capital in April and May this year, which is telling of the nature of the relations between Azerbaijan and the EU.

Several significant bilateral documents have been signed to date; the current negotiations about inking a new partnership pact are in their final stage. Besides, Azerbaijan has signed bilateral partnership accords with nine EU members – a third, that is, of all the countries in the Union, Sahiba Gafarova continued.

What else was said that, on top of her crude oil exports, Azerbaijan had also become a tested and tried supplier of natural gas to Europe. Yesterday, the president of the country Ilham Aliyev and president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen who is in Azerbaijan had signed a memorandum of understanding about the strategic partnership between the Azerbaijan Republic and the European Union as represented by the EC.

As the conversation went on, the leader of the Azerbaijani parliament briefed the guests on the structure and workings of the Milli Majlis. She also answered their questions.

Madame Speaker then mentioned Azerbaijan’s having freed her lands after thirty years of Armenian occupation in the Patriotic War of 2020. In that way, Azerbaijan had enforced, all by herself, the four resolutions of the UN Security Council regarding the bygone conflict. The riddance of the invaders was followed by the large-scale restoration and re-construction operations; the whole infrastructure of the liberated provinces is being built up anew. Armenia had destroyed all our formerly captured towns and villages during those three decades of captivity; our heritage and historical artefacts had been laid to waste and our religious monuments had been desecrated. The speakers of parliaments of several European countries, delegates of international organisations, embassial officials, members of the diplomatic corps, journalists and other visitors from abroad who had gone to those parts had witnessed the vandalism wreaked by Armenia. Even so, the Europarliament felt it possible to pass an unfair resolution in March this year alleging destruction of Armenian heritage in Garabagh. The claims contained in that document are utterly groundless and libellous, according to Sahiba Gafarova’s emphatic comment.

The Azerbaijani side is disposed towards the trilateral meetings involving the Azerbaijani president and the Armenian PM, called at the suggestion of the president of the EU Council Charles Michel. Azerbaijan is a peace advocate and continues making efforts to achieve lasting peace and stability in our region. In addition, our country has put several proposals regarding normalisation of the relations to Armenia. We trust that a peace treaty will be signed between the two countries soon enough, Mrs Gafarova said.

The chairman of the Europarliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee David McAllister said his thanks for the generous hospitality, shared his impressions of the conversation with the Azerbaijani leader Ilham Aliyev earlier today and outlined the significance of the subjects broached at that conversation. Their current visit to Azerbaijan signals the importance of the EU-Azerbaijan co-operation, the delegation leader pointed out before referring to Azerbaijan as a significant partner to the EU and saying that the EU wished the Azerbaijani-Armenian relations to become normalised. It is highly commendable in this sense that those trilateral meetings of the president of Azerbaijan and the PM of Armenia have taken place with the involvement of the president of the EU Council Charles Michel who had called for them, Mr McAllister also said.

The European visitor shared his ideas about the EU-Azerbaijan connexions, the energy co-operation, parliamentary diplomacy and other subjects.

The other participants of that meeting included the chairman of the Milli Majlis International and Inter-Parliamentary Relations Committee Samad Seyidov and the head of the Milli Majlis Delegation to the EU-Azerbaijan Parliamentary Co-operation Committee Tural Ganjaliyev.

The Press and Public Relations Department
The Milli Majlis