Chair of the Milli Majlis Sahiba Gafarova, currently in the People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria on a working visit, has had a conversation with Chairman of the People’s National Assembly of the Algerian Parliament Ibrahim Boughali.

The head of the People’s National Assembly greeted the leader of the Milli Majlis warmly before voicing the gratifying nature of the existing inter-state and inter-parliamentary relations and recalling the visit of President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan to Algeria for the 31^st summit meeting of the League of Arab States in November last year. That visit contributed dramatically to the on-going solidification of the bilateral bonds, in the opinion of Mr Boughali.

Also, Ibrahim Boughali recalled his own visit to Azerbaijan in June 2022 to take part in the first conference of the Parliamentary Network of the Non-Aligned Movement. He said he had been impressed by the achievements and progress witnessed in our country during that stay, adding that the Algerian legislature was wholly supportive of the Network and always ready to push forth co-operation within its frameworks.

The visit to Baku let them enjoy the full extent of the Azerbaijani people’s generous hospitality, according to Mr Boughali who also brought up a conversation he had had with members of the Algerian community of Azerbaijan and then thanked the Azerbaijani side for the fine living conditions afforded that community. As regards Azerbaijan’s having made her national territory whole again, the head of the People’s National Assembly remarked that his people, too, had experienced similar developments in a certain period of their history and so completely understood the pride the Azerbaijani nation felt about their victory. The Algerians wish the Azerbaijanis peace and stability, Mr Boughali noted.

Sahiba Gafarova, in turn, said her thanks for the invitation to arrive in Algeria and for the cordial hospitality extended to the Azerbaijani delegation. Saying that that was the first ever visit of Speaker of the Milli Majlis to Algeria, Mrs Gafarova spoke about the traditional ties of friendship and common values uniting Azerbaijan and Algeria. The bilateral diplomatic relations are turning thirty years in 2024, incidentally, it was said. The visit of the Azerbaijani leader Ilham Aliyev to Algeria had been a milestone in the advancement of the bilateral relations, indeed, Sahiba Gafarova stressed.

There is an untapped potential to utilise to take our relations further, then, and this applies also to the linkage between the two legislatures poised as one of the crucial facets of the relations. The friendship groups’ work is going to foster this continued broadening of links tremendously. The parliaments of Azerbaijan and Algeria co-operate fruitfully and support each other under the roofs of international parliamentary organisations. All those serve the cause of peace, security and solidarity, in the opinion of Sahiba Gafarova.

She proceeded to fill Mr Boughali in on the terrorist attack on the embassy of the Republic of Azerbaijan in the Islamic Republic of Iran on 27 January – the attack already condemned strongly by a number of states.

The leader of the Milli Majlis also supplied the head of the People’s National Assembly with detailed information about the operations of the Parliamentary Network of the Non-Aligned Movement, established at the suggestion of the President of Azerbaijan, and the tasks lying ahead of the Network. Issues that matter for the organisation’s institutional sustenance and development are to be discussed at its next conference in Bahrain. The Network is an institution capable of bolstering co-ordination of joint activities of the member-parliaments and solving the matters of joint concern whilst making certain that our countries’ voices are heard in the international arena, Sahiba Gafarova was saying. She praised Algeria’s active contribution to the Network’s endeavours, too.

Next, Mr Boughali was told of our country’s brilliant victory in the 44-day Patriotic War and of the resolutions of the UN Security Council and of other international entities demanding de-occupation of Azerbaijani provinces had been gathering dust, unfulfilled, for long years until Azerbaijan implemented them all by herself. Mrs Gafarova also made Mr Boughali aware of the new state of affairs in our region following the restoration of the wholeness of Azerbaijan’s national territory, and about the current full-scope restoration of our liberated provinces. It was Azerbaijan that called for a normalisation with Armenia and offered Armenia to sign a peace treaty based on five principles of the international law. Still, Armenia is being destructive about the conversations and breaches the provisions of the well-known trilateral statement blatantly, according to the Speaker of the Milli Majlis.

The conversation continued, with the interlocutors exchanging opinions about other topics of shared interest.

It will be noted that Deputy Chair of the Milli Majlis Fazail Ibrahimli, the leader of the Milli Majlis WG for the Azerbaijan-Algeria inter-parliamentary connexions Mahir Abbaszade, the Azerbaijani MPs Sabir Rustamkhanli and Javanshir Pashazade, and the Azerbaijani ambassador in Algiers Tural Rzayev were present at that meeting as well.

The Press and Public Relations Department

The Milli Majlis