Chair of the Milli Majlis Sahiba Gafarova who is in Warsaw on an official visit had a conversation with President of Poland Andrzej Duda on 18 April.

Mr Duda greeted the leader of the Azerbaijani delegation warmly and witnessed his pleasure at the level of interaction between Poland and Azerbaijan. Our countries have always been friendly and will remain so henceforth, according to Mr Duda. The relations will continue progressing. The leader of Poland recalled the visit of President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan to Poland in 2017 and his own to Azerbaijan in 2019 and underlined such contacts’ noteworthy role in raising the standards of bilateral connexions.

President Duda also shared his pleasant impressions from the visit to Baku before stressing that Azerbaijan is progressing successfully under the leadership of President Aliyev and that that progress was appreciated very much. Then, Mr Duda asked for his greetings to be passed to Mr Aliyev.

Thanking for the heartfelt reception, Speaker Gafarova gave Mr Aliyev’s regards to Mr Duda, saying also that that was her first visit to Poland as head of the Azerbaijani legislature. She said she trusted that this visit was going to help strengthen and deepen the links between our states and parliaments.

Azerbaijan and Poland are friendly states and strategic partners; their leaders’ reciprocal visits bear well on the growth of the two-way ties, Sahiba Gafarova continued.

She referred to the active interaction between our countries in international organisations – an interaction whose further progress is in the interests of both sides. Azerbaijan is also co-operating with Poland in the context of the European Union, and the importance of co-operating with the EU in the energy sector should be singled out here, Mrs Gafarova said. Apart from her crude oil supplies, our country has also become a reliable supplier of natural gas to Europe through the Southern Gas Corridor. This is a major contribution to the European energy security. Moreover, boosting mutual investments and collaboration between Azerbaijan and Poland in the transport and logistics sector matters in terms of Poland reaching out to new markets in Asia and beyond.

The head of the Milli Majlis brought up the subject of the Azerbaijani-Polish inter-parliamentary co-operation then. She described it as one of the factors of considerable favourable impact on the bilateral and multilateral relations. Parliamentary diplomacy is getting all the stronger for the operation of both legislatures’ friendship groups and the on-going exchange of visits. Being parliaments of two friendly countries and, what is more, strategic partners, we ought to try to understand each other’s problems better, to further our co-operation and to support each other in inter-parliamentary organisations. We ought to make our interaction stronger, Mrs Gafarova was saying.

Next, the Speaker of the Milli Majlis spoke in detail of the large-scale efforts to rebuild and revive the de-occupied Azerbaijani lands and the provocative acts of Armenia devised to undermine the struggle for sustainable regional peace. President Duda was told about the flagrant violation of paragraphs of the Trilateral Statement by Armenia – including in part regarding withdrawal of Armenian troops from Azerbaijani territories, which has not been done yet. To add insult to injury, Armenia is abusing the Lachin Road for military purposes and to export our mineral resources mined illegally in our territory. It is this illegitimate practice on Armenia’s part that the peaceful protest rally of Azerbaijani civil activists is targeting. Meanwhile, Armenia is trying to pull wool over the international community’s eyes by alleging falsely that the Lachin Road is blockaded. Whereas, the transit of more than 6,000 motor-vehicles by this road clearly indicates that is open for humanitarian ends, Mrs Gafarova pointed out.

The conversation went on; there was an exchange of views upon other mattes of mutual interest as well.

The Press and Public Relations Department
The Milli Majlis