Chair of the Milli Majlis Sahiba Gafarova had a meeting with Chair of the National Assembly of the Republic of South Africa Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula as part of her official visit to that country.

The head of the South African National Assembly greeted the Azerbaijani parliamentary delegation, thanked the leader of the Milli Majlis for having accepted the invitation to visit the SRA, stressed the South African President’s public address as being a remarkable event and appreciated the Azerbaijani delegation’s participation in it.

Mrs Mapisa-Nqakula emphasised the South African interest in furthering the bilateral inter-state and inter-legislature relations, spoke of the broadening effect that reciprocal visits and two-way contacts had on them, underlined the importance of the friendship groups as agents strengthening inter-parliamentary links and mentioned the harboured intention to step up the efforts to that end.

She spoke praisingly of the Azerbaijani chairmanship in the Non-Aligned Movement. She also underscored the high organisational standards set by the first conference of the NAM Parliamentary Network in Baku as well as the import of the documents passed at that conference. Co-operation within the Network’s frameworks is of immense significance; the NAM is giving the independent and democratic progress of the RSA a serious kind of support and so the RSA holds this organisation in high esteem and finds its contribution to the work of its Parliamentary Network as important, according to Mrs Mapisa-Nqakula who mentioned that the National Assembly had put together a delegation to that organisation already.

The need to strengthen the ties between the legislatures for experience and information exchanges and the remarkability of mutually advantageous interaction amongst our MPs, bilaterally as well as in international organisations, were mentioned, too. Mrs Mapisa-Nqakula voiced her high appreciation of the care and attention to the youth of Azerbaijan, singling out the achievements in the education field before saying that Azerbaijan’s relevant experience was a good example for her country and that the RSA wished to learn that experience therefore.

Chair of the Milli Majlis Sahiba Gafarova thanked for the invitation to pay an official visit to South Africa, saying she believed that the visit was going to serve the cause of furthering the inter-state and inter-parliamentary connexions alike. Mrs Gafarova recalled her meetings with Mrs Mapisa-Nqakula in Baku and Jakarta last year with pleasure; such encounters and the dialogue that goes with them provide for a continued strengthening and deepening of the bonds between our legislative bodies, in her opinion.

Moving on to the topic of furthering the inter-state relations and the parliaments’ roles in doing so, Sahiba Gafarova mentioned the working group for inter-parliamentary connexions active within the Milli Majlis. She underscored the magnitude of bilateral interaction and joint efforts under the roofs of inter-parliamentary entities – as much that of the interaction and experience exchange amongst committees of the two parliaments.

Furthermore, Mrs Gafarova spoke about Azerbaijan's successful activities as Chair of the Non-Aligned Movement and the significant events the NAM had held in our country; the weighty initiative put forward by the Head of State Ilham Aliyev as NAM Chair, an initiative that has received the support of the international community, was referred to as well. The NAM Parliamentary Network was established in line with that initiative, the, Ms. Gafarova mentioned, going further to tell Mrs Mapisa-Nqakula of the founding meeting and the first conference of the Network in Baku the most important documents adopted there and the tasks ahead.

Mrs Mapisa-Nqakula was told of the establishment of the NAM Youth Organisation based on the NAM Youth Network, too, founded at the suggestion of President Ilham Aliyev. The new body serves to expand co-operation amongst young people. Azerbaijan is giving the NAM countries educational grants upon the instance of the country’s leader, and the South African youth are benefiting from those as well. The Azerbaijani side is calling for more active use of this opportunity.

Speaker Gafarova recalled with pleasure the RSA delegation’s attendance of both the founding conference of the NAM PN in Madrid and its first conference in Baku. The Network is a fine platform upon which to expand interaction between our legislatures, she remarked.

That was followed by an account of Azerbaijan’s brilliant victory in the 44-day Patriotic War that made certain that the national territory of our country was made intact again, of the resolutions of the UN Security Council and further international organisations demanding to end the occupation of the Azerbaijani lands but having stayed on paper only for a protracted period. In the end, in 2020, Azerbaijan took the matter in her hands and enforced all those decrees by herself. Sometimes, resolutions of the UN Security Council are acted upon instantly; in the case of freeing our territories from the invaders it had taken close to thirty years somehow, though, according to Mrs Gafarova who attributed this fact to the dominance of double standards in the system of international relations.

The provinces recovered from under the heel of the occupiers are now being rebuilt and revitalised: the appropriate work is being done swiftly. Infrastructure is built from scratch and appropriate steps are taken to ensure that the formerly displaced people can be repatriated to their native lands. Mrs Gafarova drew the attention of the SRA National Assembly Chair to Armenia’s mining of our territories – a great hurdle for the current constructive efforts to jump, indeed. Armenia's destructive position in the negotiations was regretted – a position maintained despite Azerbaijan's proposal to sign a peace agreement between the two countries based on the principles of international law. Our country makes efforts tirelessly to achieve constant peace, well-being and security in the region, according to Sahiba Gafarova.

The terrorist attack on the Azerbaijani embassy in Iran of 27 January was also mentioned as the conversation went on. As she told about it, the leader of the Milli Majlis let her South African counterpart know that it had cost the death of one embassy employee whilst two others had been injured. The Azerbaijani side classifies that as a terrorist attack, demands that it should be investigated without bias and the culprits be punished. The international community ought to condemn this terrorist folly and give it a proper assessment, Mrs Gafarova pointed out.

Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula voiced her condolences on this occasion and said that all forms and manifestations of terrorism were to be condemned most sternly and resolutely.

The two speakers then exchanged views on certain other matters of shared interest and concern as their conversation continued.

The Press and Public Relations Department
The Milli Majlis