Chair of the Milli Majlis Sahiba Gafarova had a meeting on 2 February with the visiting delegation led by Muhammad Iqbal who is heading the Indonesia-Azerbaijan Inter-parliamentary Friendship Group in the People’s Representative Council of Indonesia.

Sahiba Gafarova told the guests she was glad to welcome them into the walls of the Milli Majlis before underlining the gratifying quality of the current friendly ties and co-operation between Azerbaijan and Indonesia. The leader of the Azerbaijani legislature also recalled the celebration of the thirtieth anniversary of the bilateral diplomatic relations last year.

Our states co-operate closely in such international entities as the UN, the Non-Aligned Movement and the Organisation of Islamic Co-operation, and Indonesia most praiseworthily supports Azerbaijan within them at all times, according to Mrs Gafarova.

Having then underscored the considerable role of our inter-parliamentary connexions in the advance of the inter-state relations, the Chair of the Milli Majlis stressed the need in a continued expansion of the effective collaboration amongst the legislatures as well as of the friendship group contacts. Sahiba Gafarova gravitated upon the interaction under the aegis of the Parliamentary Network of the Non-Aligned Movement, remembering appreciatively the attendance of the Chair of the People’s Representative Council Puan Maharani in both the inception conference of the NAM PN in Madrid and the Network’s first conference that had taken place in Baku on 30 June to 1 July. Mrs Gafarova also mentioned the admission of the Milli Majlis to the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Assembly as an observer and brought up the importance of interrelations in that organisation also.

Going further, Sahiba Gafarova talked about her conversation with the Chair of the PRC of Indonesia Puan Maharani on the sidelines of the 17^th session of the PUIC Conference in Algiers a few days back, and covered also the prospects of the Azerbaijani-Indonesian inter-parliamentary relations.

The Indonesian visitors were told about our country’s glorious victory in the 44 days’ Patriotic War and the fruitful efforts being made to resurrect the formerly-captured Azerbaijani provinces. Azerbaijan had invited Armenia to sign a peace treaty that would rest on international law principles but Armenia was being destructive towards the conversations and evading the signing of such a pact, Mrs Gafarova told her guests.

The leader of the Indonesia-Azerbaijan Friendship Group Muhammad Iqbal voiced his appreciation of the kind words said and of the generosity extended to his delegation before passing on to Chair of the Milli Majlis Sahiba Gafarova the regards of Chair of the People’s Representative Council Puan Maharani. He also thanked Mrs Gafarova for her participation in the meeting of the G20 heads of parliament in Indonesia a few months ago. The close links between Puan Maharani and Sahiba Gafarova are bound to contribute to the progress of the two-way inter-legislature connexions, in the opinion of Mr Iqbal.

The conversation went on; opinions were exchanged about other topics of mutual interest.

It will be noted that the other participants of the meeting included the leader of the Azerbaijan-Indonesia Inter-Parliamentary Connexions Working Group Bakhtiyar Aliyev, that Group’s members Hikmat Mammadov, Elman Nasirov and Aliabbas Salahzade, and Chief of the Milli Majlis Staff Farid Hajiyev.

The Press and Public Relations Department
The Milli Majlis