Chair of the Milli Majlis Sahiba Gafarova who is currently in Indonesia on a working visit has had a conversation with Speaker of the House of Commons of the British Parliament Sir Lindsay Hoyle on 6 October.

Sahiba Gafarova said she was glad to have a meeting with Sir Lindsay on the sidelines of the 8^th P20 summit, adding that such events as this gathering of parliamentary speakers were of prime significance as the events where MPs assembled to discuss the matters and topics of universal interest and concern.

The leader of the Milli Majlis recalled her official visit to the UK in July this year and the all-embracing exchanges of opinions about the future advance of inter-parliamentary co-operation that had been held at the meetings and discussions during that visit. She said also that Azerbaijan found her ties with the UK to be of intense importance and that those ties were developing dynamically in most diverse areas.

After that, the Speaker of the Milli Majlis made the Speaker of the Commons aware of the concern about the attacks upon the Azerbaijani embassy in London – the attacks, she stressed, which had mainly been an attempt to undermine the flourishing bilateral relations. That provocation is being investigated and very thoroughly, too, according to Sahiba Gafarova who emphasised the utmost necessity of keeping our embassies and diplomats safe on a mutual basis, as it were.

Regarding the current state of affairs in our region Speaker Gafarova said that Azerbaijan continued making efforts for lasting peace and stability here, and had offered Armenia both a normalisation and the signing of a peace treaty that would rest on five principles of the international law. Mutual recognition of sovereignty and territorial integrity and delimitation and demarcation of borders constitute a foundation of any peace arrangement – which sadly cannot be said about Armenia.

On the contrary, Armenia takes a destructive approach to the peace conversations c conducted through international effort, hinders the resumption of the regional communication lines and transport arteries with its armed provocations and is dragging its feet on the normalisation process. Armenia resorted to yet another military provocation against Azerbaijan on 13 September 2022. As if that were not enough, neither has Armenia withdrawn all of its armed forces from the Azerbaijani territory yet but continues mining. Having said that, Sahiba Gafarova praised the condemnation of the Armenian provocations in a statement by Bob Blackman, MP, head of the group of friendship with Azerbaijan in the British Parliament.

Speaker of the House of Commons of the UK Sir Lindsay Hoyle greeted Chair of the Milli Majlis Sahiba Gafarova sincerely and told her that the realm he represented considered it very important to further the connexions with Azerbaijan, mentioned the productive dialogue between our states and indicated the desire of the United Kingdom to continue deepening its relations with Azerbaijan. It is as important to keep the inter-parliamentary co-operation evolving, according to Sir Lindsay who proceeded to touch on the relevant significance of the efficient work done by both sides’ friendship groups.

As regards the assault on the Azerbaijani embassy in London, Sir Lindsay voiced his regrets about it, saying that he meant to table the subject once again and to follow the efforts made to keep our embassial building and staff safe and sound.

Sir Lindsay thanked Mrs Gafarova for the detailed information about the current situation in our region; he underlined the weight of the principle of territorial integrity as a dramatic indicator of peace and stability.

Other matters of shared concern were discussed during the meeting as well.

The Press and Public Relations Department  
The Milli Majlis