Speaker of the Milli Majlis Sahiba Gafarova had a meeting on 1 March with the visiting delegation headed by Elisabeth Winkelmeier-Becker, Chairwoman of the Committee on Legal Policy of the Bundestag of the Federal Republic of Germany.

As she greeted the guests in the Azerbaijani Parliament, the Speaker said she had hopes that their visit would contribute to the relations between our countries and parliaments. She also remarked that Azerbaijan and Germany are friendly states and partners, and that both sides were keen on promoting the growth of their mutually beneficial co-operation.

The exceptional role of the high-level political dialogue and, specifically, of the reciprocal visits and meetings of the Heads of State in the progress of the bilateral relations was emphasised at the meeting. The Speaker of the Milli Majlis mentioned the meeting of President Ilham Aliyev, who had then been taking part in the Munich Security Conference, with Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

Speaker Sahiba Gafarova supplied the guests with detailed information about the current regional situation, the prospects of the peace process between Azerbaijan and Armenia, and the matters of importance to normalisation of the relations, creation of an atmosphere of trust and establishment of peace.

The Speaker of the Milli Majlis also touched on the meeting of the President of Azerbaijan and Armenian PM in Munich, mediated by Chancellor Olaf Scholz, and mentioned the peace treaty talks between the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan and Armenia that have gone on for the two days past.

The guests were told that Armenia came up with false claims rather departed from the truth in an attempt to misinform the international community.

According to Sahiba Gafarova, certain circles in the West are now making absurd and false allegations that Azerbaijan intends to assault Armenia. Mrs Gafarova reiterated the utterly unfounded nature of such statements. Today, Azerbaijan is busy conducting the large-scale restoration and reclamation work in her de-occupied territories; new towns and villages are being built. The former IDP are moving back to their native lands as part of the great return programme. The claims of Azerbaijan attacking Armenia are completely unacceptable under such circumstances.

The Speaker of the Milli Majlis also sternly criticised the double standards that certain circles in Europe are applying to Azerbaijan nowadays. She said that Azerbaijan’s lands had remained occupied by Armenia for 30 years. Our 9 towns and hundreds of villages as well as historical, cultural and religious sites and artefacts were completely destroyed during the occupation period; 1 million of our fellow-citizens had become refugees and IDP. The international community never imposed sanctions of any manner on Armenia, though. Azerbaijan liberated her lands from the occupation and enforced the principles and standards of international law by herself. Despite the 30-year-long occupation, it was Azerbaijan which proposed a lasting regional peace initiative, having drafted the text of a peace treaty based on the 5 fundamental international law principles including those of mutual recognition of sovereignty and territorial integrity, and having offered it to Armenia.

According to the Speaker, Azerbaijan has repeatedly said there were no obstacles of any sort for the peace treaty to be signed; Azerbaijan continues her efforts to achieve a positive outcome.

Also, the Speaker of the Milli Majlis mentioned the deportation of 250,000 Azerbaijanis from Armenia as well as the fact that those people had been forced to lead the lives of refugees. Nobody is talking about the rights of the 250,000 Azerbaijanis, which is another snippet of the duplicity of the applied standards.

Chairwoman of the Committee on Legal Policy of the Bundestag Elisabeth Winkelmeier-Becker thanked for the meeting and the opportunity to hold a discussion before stating the goals of the visit to our region.

She expressed support for the conversations about signing the peace treaty and building an ambience of trust, saying also that Germany is forever by Azerbaijan’s side inasmuch as territorial integrity and peace are concerned. Mrs Winkelmeier-Becker stressed that Garabagh has always been Azerbaijan’s territory from the international law point of view. She hopes that the negotiations will give a positive result and that it will become possible to sign the peace treaty between the sides.

Bilateral co-operation, relations between our legislatures and other matters of shared interest were talked over as well as the meeting went on.

The Press and Public Relations Department

The Milli Majlis