Chair of the Milli Majlis Sahiba Gafarova who is in the Republic of Kazakhstan on a working trip has spoken at the meeting of the CIS IPA Council held on 29 March to mark the 30^th anniversary of the Inter-Parliamentary Assembly of the Commonwealth of Independent States.

Sahiba Gafarova began by reading out the message of President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan to the participants of the meeting and, addressing its topic then, congratulated the assembled on the remarkable anniversary and wished the Assembly a continued progress.

The IPA is an advantageous site on which to exchange legislative practice experience in political, legal, economic, humanitarian and other fields, according to Madame Speaker. The Milli Majlis has continued its activity under the roof of the IPA despite the pandemic’s already two-year-long stranglehold on the world. The members of our delegation have been joining virtual and IRL events of the Assembly and have held senior positions on various commissions.

The leader of the Milli Majlis continued her speech by describing the new realia that exist in the South Caucasus as a result of Azerbaijan’s having liberated its lands from the occupation by Armenia. The post-war period has brought forth new regional peace and co-operation prospects whilst Azerbaijan, a staunch peace advocate, remains dedicated to the fulfilment of the provisions of the Trilateral Statement that the heads of Azerbaijan, Russia and Armenia signed on 10 November 2020, according to Mrs Gafarova. We suppose Armenia, too, will fulfil its own obligations imposed on it by that statement, Mrs Gafarova pointed out. Armenia should take a constructive approach to the matter and make efforts to normalise the relations on the basis of mutual recognition of sovereignty, territorial integrity and inviolability of international borders, and on grounds also of reviving all the economic connexions and transport communications in the region where peace and stability are only achievable in this way, Sahiba Gafarova stressed.

Because the speaker of the Armenian parliament Simonyan was present at the meeting, Chair of the Milli Majlis Sahiba Gafarova recalled that the Azerbaijani side still waited for information from Armenia as to the fate of the approximately four thousand Azerbaijanis gone missing ever since the times of Garabagh War I.

The Press and Public Relations Department
The Milli Majlis