Chair of the Milli Majlis Sahiba Gafarova has had a meeting with Chair of the Lithuanian Seimas Viktorija Čmilytė-Nielsen as part of her current official visit to Lithuania.

Viktorija Čmilytė-Nielsen who welcomed the delegation of the Azerbaijani parliament heartily mentioned that Azerbaijan and Lithuania are the partners who keep up close interaction. She referred with intense satisfaction to the bilateral relations, which, in her opinion, look at fine opportunities to progress further. For instance, there are the sound conditions favouring promotion of our interaction in ICT, food industry, agriculture and education. Azerbaijan is one of those countries with which Lithuania has the tightest collaboration in the format of the twinning programme, too. Lithuania is an unwavering supporter of the territorial integrity of our country, Mrs Čmilytė-Nielsen said before underlining the importance of maintaining peace and security in our region.

Azerbaijan is a considerable partner to Europe, according to the leader of the Seimas who went further to speak about the importance of the Eastern Partnership summit and of Azerbaijan joining this international convention.

The currently high level of co-operation amongst the legislatures of the two countries was mentioned as well. Mrs Čmilytė-Nielsen said that the visit of the Azerbaijani delegation and the work done by the two legislatures’ friendship groups contributed impressively to the advancement of the bipartite connexions.

Chair of the Milli Majlis Sahiba Gafarova expressed her gratitude for the invitation to visit Lithuania and for the cordial hospitality extended to our delegation before mentioning that that was her first ever coming to Lithuania as Speaker of the parliament of Azerbaijan. Mrs Gafarova went further to say that she hoped this visit was going to ensure a continued strengthened and expansion of the relations between our countries. The progress of those relations is receiving an outstanding impulse from the exchange of high-level visits and the conversations that are held during them, Sahiba Gafarova added. A propos, she mentioned one official and two work visits of the president of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev to Lithuania and two official and three work visits of the president of Lithuania to our country.

The Azerbaijani-Lithuanian co-operation encompasses the political, economic, trading, humanitarian and other areas. The interaction of our parliaments is one of the remarkable factors that bear well on our bilateral and multilateral ties alike; incidentally, the parliaments are looking at opportunities to make their ties yet more profound just now. Mrs Gafarova then spoke of the positive experience of our MPs’ interaction in the international organisations and lauded the efforts made by the two sides’ friendship groups. Through their regular contacts, dialogue and exchange of opinions, those groups are bridging our legislatures. Mrs Gafarova praised the statement of the Seimas’ friendship group about the Khojali Genocide and told Mrs Čmilytė-Nielsen of the genocide in question in great detail.

The support of the Republic of Lithuania for the territorial wholeness and sovereignty of Azerbaijan was mentioned, too. Sahiba Gafarova gave an account of our country’s historic victory in the 44 days’ Patriotic War of 2020, saying that, thanks to that triumph, Azerbaijan had freed its lands after thirty years of Armenian occupation and made its national territory intact again.

The other subjects that were touched upon during the conversation were the new situation and conditions established in our region, and that there is no conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan anymore: the one that had existed is committed to history, having been terminated with the trilateral statement of 10 November 2020.

The Chair of the Milli Majlis also brought up the topics of the large-scale restoration work afoot in the freed provinces of Azerbaijan, the need to restore the regional communications, the transport projects initiated and supported directly by Azerbaijan and the Zangazur Corridor.

The Press and Public Relations Department
The Milli Majlis