Members of the Milli Majlis Working Group for the Azerbaijan-Afghanistan interparliamentary contacts had a meeting with the delegation led by the Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador of Afghanistan to our country Amanullah Jaihoon on 17 February.

Working Group Leader Musa Gasimli welcomed the guests before making a reference to the historical ties between our nations and thanking the Afghani parliamentarians for the statements that both the Upper and Lower chambers of the National Assembly of Afghanistan had been making during the 44-day Patriotic War. Mr Gasimli also expressed the gratitude to the Afghani people at large for advocating the righteous cause of Azerbaijan. The backup given during both Garabagh War I and Garabagh War II and the relevant declarations made came as tokens of not only our brotherhood but also of the respect of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan to the international legal norms and the UN Charter and, equally importantly, as the will of the Afghani nation being made known full well, Mr Gasimli was saying.

Certain historic milestones of the Azerbaijani-Afghani relations were brought up, too. Mr Gasimli thanked the Parliament of the fraternal country also for the recognition of the Khojali Genocide, adding that Azerbaijan, for its part, had always defended the just cause of Afghanistan and made a serious contribution to the training of the Afghani national staff in several specialist areas. The Azerbaijani peace-makers are serving with the international forces providing security in Afghanistan, besides.

‘We want the Afghani people to live in prosperity and Afghanistan to be a strong state,’ Mr Gasimli summed up.

Ambassador Jaihoon congratulated the Azerbaijani side on the victory in the patriotic War and expressed its best wishes on this occasion, saying then that Afghanistan both as a nation and as a state was always right there by Azerbaijan’s side. He highlighted the historical, religious and cultural ties and community of the two countries, spoke frowningly of the annexationist course that the Armenians had begun at the end of last century and told of his trip to the Azerbaijani lands reconquered in the 44-day war. Mr Jaihoon mentioned specially the destruction he could eyewitness in Ganja and admitted that he had been appalled by the aftermath of the Armenian vandalism.

Telling the hosts about the Afghani Parliament, Mr Jaihoon stressed that women had a high representation profile in both its chambers.

Mr Jaihoon voiced the desire of Afghanistan to see the bilateral interparliamentary relations become broader.

Next, Committee Chairman and member of the Milli Majlis Working Group for the Azerbaijan-Afghanistan interparliamentary relations Tahir Rzayev talked about of the friendship and brotherhood of our nations; he also raised a number of other as important issues in his speech.

There was an exchange of opinions about issues of shared interest at the meeting, too.

The Press and Public Relations Department
The Milli Majlis