Speaker of the Milli Majlis Sahiba Gafarova had a meeting with Chairman of the Global Council for Tolerance and Peace Ahmad bin Mohammad Al-Jarwan on 6 November.

Expressing her pleasure at the opportunity to welcome the guest to Baku, Sahiba Gafarova said that the Global Baku Summit of World Religious Leaders serves as an important platform for discussing highly relevant issues.

She went further to say that the Global Council for Tolerance and Peace promotes peace and tolerance worldwide, and that the Azerbaijani people share these same values. As the Speaker highlighted, fostering multiculturalism, tolerance, and interfaith dialogue has always been a way of life for the Azerbaijani people and a core part of state policy. The Speaker of the National Assembly also stated that, acting under the leadership of President Ilham Aliyev, Azerbaijan advances and propagates humanistic values such as tolerance, multiculturalism, and mutual understanding, and not merely regionally but globally as well.

Sahiba Gafarova then mentioned the events that our country had organised to address the topics of tolerance, multiculturalism, inter-cultural dialogue and mutual understanding. The absence of tolerance and mutual understanding adds up to one of the causes of conflicts occurring in the world, in her opinion.

It was remarked in the course of the meeting that Azerbaijan’s election as the COP29 host not only reflected the global backing of the green energy agenda by our country but also spelled its ability to unite diverse groups, promote dialogue and secure mutual understanding amongst such groups. World religions and the concept of tolerance command a great potential and opportunities inasmuch as combatting climate change as one of the acutest problems of our time is concerned. The Summit’s ‘World Religions for the Green Planet’ slogan is informed with this urgency as well.

Speaker Sahiba Gafarova accentuated the intention of the Milli Majlis and the Inter-Parliamentary Union to combine to organise and hold a parliamentary conference on the sidelines of the COP29. She said she was certain that that conference, too, was going to afford a remarkable opportunity to discuss the relevant topicality.

Chairman of the Global Council for Tolerance and Peace Ahmad bin Mohammad Al-Jarwan thanked President Ilham Aliyev for the high organisational standards set by the Global Summit of Religious Leaders and for the conditions provided for his visit to Azerbaijan. He said that he loved Azerbaijan very much and that the guests had been profoundly impressed by their acquaintance with our country, its culture and the multicultural values of our nation.

According to the guest, the Global Baku Summit of World Religious Leaders is an excellent opportunity to discuss the peace and tolerance issues. Then, the Chairman of the Global Council for Tolerance and Peace told about the activities of the organisation he is helming.

There was also an exchange of views upon bilateral co-operation opportunities at the meeting.

The Press and Public Relations Department
The Milli Majlis