The delegation led by Chair of the Milli Majlis Sahiba Gafarova met with members of the Italy-Azerbaijan Friendship Group and the Italy-Azerbaijan Friendship Association at Palazzo Montecitorio in Rome on 19 May.

Speaking at the meeting, Deputy Chairman of the Chamber of Deputies Ettore Rosato greeted the delegation of Azerbaijan and pointed at the high regard in which his country holds furtherance of its relations with Azerbaijan. Mr Rosato proceeded to share his impressions of the journey to Azerbaijan immediately after the end of the Patriotic War, and to voice his pleasure with the positive dynamics in the progress of the bonds between the two countries’ legislatures.

Chair of the Milli Majlis Sahiba Gafarova praised the work done by the friendship groups in both parliaments as well as the degree of collaboration between them. Madame Speaker noted the advancing strategic partnership of the two countries before focusing the meeting participants’ attention on the special part that the two state leaders’ visits had played in the partnership relations having reached the degree they manifest nowadays.

Sahiba Gafarova further remarked in the course of the conversation that Azerbaijan had liberated its lands captured by Armenia previously and had restored its territorial integrity last year. Still, though the conflict is no more, the Armenian side will not desist from its unhelpful standing and will refuse to release minefield maps. Also, Armenia is trying to make the terrorists sent to the territory of Azerbaijan after the 10^th of November statement look like ‘prisoners of war’ to the international community – this is a red herring, an attempt to divert that same international community’s attention from the staple issues stipulated in the said statement.

Madame Speaker went further to say that Armenia had annihilated the towns and villages as well as the tangible heritage, monuments of culture and history and natural sites in the Azerbaijani territories during the occupation period that had lasted for almost thirty years; the whole infrastructure of those areas had been destroyed as well. Today, the internally displaced people evicted from their homelands look forward to the day when they can return to their fathers’ homes; for this to happen, then, a great building and restoration work had been started in the de-occupied areas.

A member of the Italian Chamber of Deputies and Leader of the Italy-Azerbaijan Friendship Association Rossana Boldi, Leader of the Italy-Azerbaijan Friendship Group Stefano Lucidi, Leader of the Azerbaijan-Italy Interparliamentary Working Group Azeri Karimli and a member of the Milli Majlis Eldar Guliyev spoke at the meeting, too. They accentuated the high ebb of the relations between the two countries. It was said that the visit of the delegation drawn from both the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies of Italy immediately after the end of the confrontation in December last year demonstrated very clearly the significance attached to those relations.

The members of both sides’ friendship groups said during the meeting that there were both the remarkable potential and the solid legal foundation for the strategic co-operation between our countries to develop further. 

The Press and Public Relations Department  
The Milli Majlis