Chair of the Milli Majlis Sahiba Gafarova has met with President of the Arab Parliament Adel bin Abdul Abdulrahman Al-Asoumi at the AP headquarters as part of her current official visit to the Arab Republic of Egypt.

Mr Al-Asoumi greeted the Azerbaijani parliamentary delegation with pleasure and told them that this meeting signified a remarkable contribution to the on-going expansion of our relations. The Arab Parliament deems its connexions with the Parliamentary Network of the Non-Aligned Movement of importance, according to Mr Al-Asoumi who praised the successful Azerbaijani chairmanship of this co-operation platform and said that Azerbaijan was doing a lot to sustain the Network and ensure its institutional growth.

The leader of the AP reminded Sahiba Gafarova of his participation in both the constituent assembly of the NAM PN in Madrid and the Network’s first conference in Baku before underlining the high organisational standards set by both and stressing the special attention the AP pays to international co-operation matters.

Speaker Sahiba Gafarova congratulated Mr Al-Asoumi on re-election as President of the AP and wished him and the organisation he is helming success. She recalled their encounters at the NAM PN events and gatherings of other international parliamentary organisations and pointed out the usefulness of their discussions at those.

The Milli Majlis of Azerbaijan maintains sound relations with many AP members, as can once again be seen from her present official visit to Egypt; besides, the AP national parliaments are also members of the NAM PN established in Madrid in November 2021 upon the instance of President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan, Mrs Gafarova was saying.

The first conference of the NAM Parliamentary Network took place in Baku from 30 June to 1 July 2022, she remarked, thanking the Head of the Arab Parliament for the attendance of the inception assembly in the Spanish capital and of the Baku Conference alike and inviting Mr Al-Asoumi to the next Network conference due in Bahrain’s capital city of Manama on 13 March. Then, she made him aware of the current preparations for that event.

The Network’s co-operation with other international parliamentary entities is broadening; there are extensive opportunities to further such interaction because peace, security, sustainable development, solidarity and dialogue are the principles underlying all our endeavours. All those organisations pursue the same goals.

Sahiba Gafarova spoke praisingly of the decision made at the 22^nd January plenary meeting of the Arab Parliament to obtain an observer status with the Parliamentary Network of the Non-Aligned Movement. That makes three international parliamentary bodies observers in the Network: the Asian Parliamentary Assembly, the Parliamentary Union of the Organisation of Islamic Co-operation and the Arab Parliament.

As the meeting drew on, the Chair of the Milli Majlis told of the almost 30-year-long Armenian occupation of the Azerbaijani lands and the resolutions of the UN Security Council and other international offices demanding de-occupation of our territories having remained but on paper for long years. She also told of Azerbaijan’s having made her national territory whole again and enforced those resolutions by her very own with the remarkable victory in the 44 days’ Patriotic War of 2020. Besides, Mr Al-Asoumi was supplied with ample information about the new reality established in our region following those developments, the work being done to restore and revive our liberated provinces, the already-begun repatriation of the erstwhile internally displaced people, the provocations to which Armenia is resorting in an attempt to derail the peace process and the Armenian mining of Azerbaijani territories. Mrs Gafarova then told Mr Al-Asoumi how all the Azerbaijani towns had been destroyed, the formerly occupied provinces ransacked, and our historical and cultural heritage and mosques laid to waste during the years of occupation. The Azerbaijani mosques had been desecrated, which is insulting not only for our people but the Islamic World in general as well.

Then, the conversation moved on to the 27^th of January terrorist attack on the Azerbaijani embassy in the Islamic Republic of Iran killing one embassial employee and wounding two others. We regard this assault as a terrorist act and we demand that it be investigated objectively and the criminals responsible for it be duly punished, commented the Speaker of the Milli Majlis.

The meeting was capped with the signing of a memorandum of understanding about co-operation between the Arab Parliament and the Parliamentary Network of the Non-Aligned Movement: a move of utmost importance for the institutionalisation of the relationship, according to Chair of the Milli Majlis Sahiba Gafarova.

The Press and Public Relations Department

The Milli Majlis