Speaker of the Milli Majlis Sahiba Gafarova met with the visiting Minister of State at the Federal Foreign Office of Germany on 11 July.

Sahiba Gafarova welcomed the guest, witnessed satisfaction with the current level of Azerbaijani-German relations and their progress and, as she turned to successful co-operation, bilaterally and in the European Union, she stressed the interaction with the EU being a foreign political priority with Azerbaijan. She also touched on Azerbaijan’s contribution to European energy security.

Besides, Mrs Gafarova brought up the essentiality of reciprocal visits and high-status meetings for the progress of the bilateral relations, in which context she underlined the significance of the outcomes of Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev’s visit to Germany in March the current year.

It was then said that our relations are based on a solid legal basis and that Germany is one of our main trade partners. Mrs Gafarova also noted the favourable investment climate created in Azerbaijan and leading German companies doing business in Azerbaijan successfully.

As she was underlining the importance of inter-legislature co-operation for strengthening the Azerbaijani-German friendship, Mrs Gafarova emphasised the crucial nature of high-level visits as well as she did the tasks assigned to the inter-parliamentary friendship groups. It is necessary to have regular meeting visits of the members of the groups and to hold wide exchanges of views on co-operation, according to Madam Speaker.

Mrs Gafarova went further to tell of the grave aftermath of the 30-year-long Armenian occupation policy and of the Armenian mine terror that continues still. Azerbaijan came up with the initiative to secure lasting peace in the region despite the fact that it was Azerbaijan that had been subjected to occupation. Armenia ought to show appreciation of this Azerbaijani initiative, especially in view of the existing realia, according to Madam Speaker.

In turn, Tobias Lindner pointed out the great importance Germany attaches to developing her relations with Azerbaijan and her interest in promoting the bilateral ties in the political, economic, cultural and humanitarian spheres as well as at parliamentary level. Two-way visits between the countries and meetings and exchanges of experience and information are equally as important since they help deepen the inter-legislature ties. Mr Lindner said that peace and tranquillity would certainly be restored in the South Caucasus, and this will further deepen the beneficial cooperation between the parties involved.

The meeting continued. Other topics of shared interest were discussed as well.

The Press and Public Relations Department

The Milli Majlis