Chair of the Milli Majlis Mrs Sahiba Gafarova has met with Chair of the parliament (Saeima) of Latvia Mrs Ināra Mūrniece as part of the current official visit to the Republic of Latvia.

Ināra Mūrniece greeted the Azerbaijani parliamentary delegation cordially and underlined her pleasure at their arrival in Latvia. She also recalled her own visit to Baku as well as the meeting with the speaker of the Milli Majlis Sahiba Gafarova in the Austrian capital city of Vienna. Such visits as this one serve to strengthen the bonds between our countries and their legislative assemblies alike, Mrs Mūrniece pointed out.

Latvia finds promoting the relations with Azerbaijan to be of special importance, and those relations are advancing dynamically, Mrs Mūrniece continued, adding that her country was invariably interested in stability maintained in the South Caucasus.

Chair of the Milli Majlis Sahiba Gafarova expressed her gratitude for the invitation to come to Latvia as well as for the hospitality they had been met with. This visit would make a contribution of its own to the continued strengthening and broadening of the ties connexions that hold our countries together, Mrs Gafarova remarked with confidence.

The mutual relations have a rich history; Azerbaijan and Latvia are the two friendly states and strategic partners, and high-level visits and meetings factor crucially into the advancement off their relations, according to Mrs Gafarova. She proceeded to emphasise the prominent role in the evolution of the relations that befalls the visits and the relationship of the leaders of our states.

The multi-faceted interaction rests on an appropriate legal foundation with the interaction of our legislatures being one of the forces bearing well on the bipartite and multilateral connexions of Azerbaijan and Latvia, according to Sahiba Gafarova. There is a rather very efficient co-operation going between the legislatures today. The exchanged visits and the fruitful joint efforts made under the aegis of the international organisations bring about the growth of the inter-parliamentary relations. Each parliament has a friendship group in action, too, incidentally. The members of the Saeima group of friendship with Azerbaijan were taken to Ganja damaged by the Armenian missile attacks as well as to the de-occupied towns of Agdam and Fuzuli as they visited our country in June last year. Having recalled those arrangements, Mrs Gafarova praised the friendship group’s statements made about the Khojali  Genocide and the provocations of Armenia committed along the borders as well as during the Patriotic War. The leader of the Azerbaijani parliament also lauded the Latvian parliamentary group’s support for the liberation of the previously occupied provinces and its congratulatory letters that were sent round in this respect.

The people of Azerbaijan would be marking the thirtieth anniversary of the Khojali Genocide on 26 February, Sahiba Gafarova mentioned before supplying the Latvian colleague with abundant information about that genocidal atrocity.

Also, the head of the Milli Majlis brought up Azerbaijan’s victory in the 44 days’ Patriotic War. It was thanks to that victory that Azerbaijan had freed its lands after thirty years of Armenian occupation and made its national territory whole again. There is no conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan anymore, Sahiba Gafarova said with stress. A new kind of reality reigns in the region. Azerbaijan has put several peace treaty signing offers to Armenia that should lead to mutual recognition of sovereignty and territorial integrity by these countries – as much as it would bring about the start of the state borders’ delimitation and demarcation, make possible to restore and reopen all communications in the region and normalise the relations. Azerbaijan wishes to speak of peace and the future rather than of war. Mrs Gafarova said then hopefully that Armenia was going to take in the new reality established in the region and to concur with the Azerbaijani approach to maintaining peace and stability.

The meeting saw an exchange of opinions about development of the relations between our states and parliaments and about also other matters of interest to both sides.

The Press and Public Relations Department
The Milli Majlis