Deputy Chair of the Milli Majlis/Chairman of the parliamentary Youth and Sports Committee Adil Aliyev received on 4 October the head of Istanbul Media Ali Rza Yıldız and Gökhan Balcın, the assistant to Yıldız and head of the Crafts and Artists’ Guild of the Istanbul district of Çekmeköy, who are visiting in Azerbaijan on the invitation of the International Research Centre on Public and Political Processes.

Adil Aliyev made a point of saying that the 4^th of October was a special date in the history of our country and of the Turkic Muslim World alike because it was a year ago today that the Azerbaijani Army liberated the Jabrayil Province of the country. Mr Aliyev wholly put the guests in the picture of the Patriotic War the first anniversary of which we are marking now. He stressed the end to the thirty-year-long Armenian aggression and the crushing blow landed on the enemy on the battlefields.

According to the Deputy Speaker, the Jabrayil Province, captured by the armed forces of Armenia in August 1993, had been completely ransacked by the Armenian vandals: Armenia had applied its policy of aggression even to cultural artefacts as it laid to waste and desecrated historical objects and religious shrines. Our temples, our mosques were turned to cattle pens; such utter disrespect for creed defies measurement.    

The occupation dealt the province the damage that is estimated at USD 13,928 bn. Jabrayil’s internally displaced people who had been forced out of their homes were reduced to spending 27 years nestled at 2,000 populated localities in 58 provinces around the country; they took shelter at refugee camps, goods wagons and hostels.

As the visitors were told, the liberation of Jabrayil and the triumphant closure of the Patriotic War under the command of President and Commander-in-Chief Ilham Aliyev were followed up with the visit of President Aliyev and First Vice President Mehriban Aliyev to the reconquered province where they raised our tricolour on 16 November 2020.

Chairman of the International Research Centre on Public and Political Processes Samir Adighezalli told in every detail of the Centre’s work and of the information battle waged during the war. The media of the brotherly country dedicated a large space to what was happening in Azerbaijan; the Turkish mass media were telling the world about the Armenian aggression tirelessly, according to Mr Adighezalli.

The head of the Istanbul Media Ali Rza Yıldız expressed his gratitude for the kind welcome before saying that the fraternal Azerbaijan had always been by Turkey’s side and that they in his country love and respect very much the Azerbaijanis who had come to Turkey’s rescue when fires raged all over the land this past summer.

They – the media leaders – have always worked hard on keeping our relations firm and have called up their strength to tell the world about the realia of Azerbaijan without fail, according to Ali Rza Yıldız.

Some other matters were talked about during the conversation as well.

The Press and Public Relations Department

The Milli Majlis