Azerbaijan’s parliamentary delegation under Chair of the Milli Majlis Sahiba Gafarova met with Chairman of the State Duma of the Federal Assembly Vyacheslav Volodin on 23 September as part of the delegation’s official visit to Russian Federation.

Mr Volodin said he was glad to see the Azerbaijani visitors at the State Duma before he underscored the importance of two-way visits and said that Russia and Azerbaijan are strategic partners. A treaty about bilateral interparliamentary co-operation is in the making currently, according to Mr Volodin. Russia, as he remarked, was interested in furthering the co-operation with Azerbaijan in not only the parliamentarian area but in other fields, too.

Thanking the State Duma Chairman for his warm welcome, Mrs Gafarova said that the visit had taken place later than planned initially due to the well-known reasons caused by the pandemic. She remarked then that she hoped mutual visits would be continued as the two sides had a lot to discuss.

It was further said that the relationship between the two states’ leaders Ilham Aliyev and Vladimir Putin based on mutual trust as well as their frequent meetings had played a very important part in the advancement of the interstate relations.

Mrs Gafarova underlined the roles of the Azerbaijani and Russian parliaments in that advancement; she mentioned the activities of the friendship groups in both parliaments and referred to the successful interaction of the latter in the international parliamentary organisations. It was pointed out that the Azerbaijani delegation unanimously voted in favour of bringing Russia back to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council Europe when doing so was debated at the PACE session this last June.

Mrs Gafarova lauded the existing permanent bilateral interparliamentary commission of the Milli Majlis and the Federal Assembly.

Being a multi-ethnic and many-confessional country, Azerbaijan is in possession of a wealth of cultural and spiritual heritage whilst also being richly experienced in multiculturalism, which is why our country always demonstrates tolerance towards other nations and religions and towards the diversity of the cultures of the world. Given this, it is little surprise that most of the Russians who live in the South Caucasus are resident nowhere else but in Azerbaijan, according to Mrs Gafarova.

Notably, it was said at the meeting, Russia and Azerbaijan had together a powerful legal platform consisting of more than 200 bilateral intergovernmental, interstate and inter-ministerial agreements.

Mrs Gafarova and Mr Volodin also talked over the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over Highland Garabagh and the armed clashes on the border with Azerbaijan’s western province of Tovuz. Mrs Gafarova voiced the Azerbaijani side’s adherence to a fair solution to this problem, one to be based on the international legal standards. Should the peace talks not be sustained, though, then, Azerbaijan would rescue its own lands from the captivity, she added. Mr Volodin responded by saying that Russia supports the territorial wholeness of Azerbaijan and advocates the problem’s solution in a peaceful manner.

They also discussed other matters of shared interest. In the end, Chair of the Milli Majlis Sahiba Gafarova invited the colleague to pay an official visit to Azerbaijan whenever convenient to him.

The Press and Public Relations Department
The Milli Majlis