Gentlemen, now we start statement for press by President of Republic of Azerbaijan and Secretary General of NATO. Please. Dear Mr. Secretary General, dear guests, ladies and gentlemen, welcome, Mr. Secretary General. I’m very glad to see you in Azerbaijan. Thank you for accepting my invitation and visiting us. I have very good memories of our last meeting in Brussels more than two years ago. And now we continue our dialogue. NATO-Azerbaijan partnership already has a long history, more than 30 years of good partnership. Azerbaijan participated in peacekeeping operations in Kosovo, in Afghanistan, and that was a great experience for us. Our military servicemen were among the last of coalition forces in afghanistan to leave that country in the end of august 2021. So this once again demonstrates our strong commitment to our cooperation.
Reforms in our armed forces lead to good results. We are modernizing our defense capability and today can demonstrate high level of professionalism. During many years of our discussions, we always talked about occupation of Azerbaijani land by Armenia. But now, for more than three years, this issue is out of the topics of discussion because Azerbaijan restored its territorial integrity and sovereignty during the Second Karabakh War of 2020 and during the last September’s anti-terror operation. So now full sovereignty over the territory of the country is restored, and this is a good demonstration of how protracted conflicts can be resolved. The conflict was resolved by military political means. We used our right for self-defense based on UN Charter, and today we are in an active phase of peace talks with Armenia. During my last visit to Brussels at the press conference, I raised that issue and said that Azerbaijan made such a proposal and we expect Armenia to respond. Once again, I’d like to say that it was our initiative to start peace negotiations, and now we had already seven rounds of exchange of comments with Armenia counterparts on draft peace agreement. And the recent meeting of the foreign ministers and also meeting of the deputy prime ministers on the issue of border delimitation demonstrate that there is a good chance for settlement. And as I said relatively recently, we are now closer to peace than ever before because during the times of occupation, unfortunately, negotiations did not lead to any result. Actually, for 28 years, Minsk Group of OSCE did not produce any result.
But now, as a result of restoration of territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, we are very close, I think, and I hope to have a breakthrough. And that will be a very serious geopolitical change in the Caucasus. That will mean that peace will come to the Caucasus long-awaited peace. Today we also discussed the issue of energy security with Mr. Secretary General. I informed him that since we met last time in Brussels, two more NATO member states became our partners with respect to natural gas supply. And today Azerbaijan is exporting natural gas to eight countries. Six of them are member states of NATO, two partners to NATO. And I’m sure that in the coming years, the number of our partners will grow. European Commission calls Azerbaijan a reliable partner and a pan-European gas supplier.
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Part 1:
Gentlemen, now we start statement for press by President of Republic of Azerbaijan and Secretary General of NATO. Please. Dear Mr. Secretary General, dear guests, ladies and gentlemen, welcome, Mr. Secretary General. I’m very glad to see you in Azerbaijan. Thank you for accepting my invitation and visiting us. I have very good memories of our last meeting in Brussels more than two years ago. And now we continue our dialogue. NATO-Azerbaijan partnership already has a long history, more than 30 years of good partnership. Azerbaijan participated in peacekeeping operations in Kosovo, in Afghanistan, and that was a great experience for us. Our military servicemen were among the last of coalition forces in afghanistan to leave that country in the end of august 2021. So this once again demonstrates our strong commitment to our cooperation.
Reforms in our armed forces lead to good results. We are modernizing our defense capability and today can demonstrate high level of professionalism. During many years of our discussions, we always talked about occupation of Azerbaijani land by Armenia. But now, for more than three years, this issue is out of the topics of discussion because Azerbaijan restored its territorial integrity and sovereignty during the Second Karabakh War of 2020 and during the last September’s anti-terror operation. So now full sovereignty over the territory of the country is restored, and this is a good demonstration of how protracted conflicts can be resolved. The conflict was resolved by military political means. We used our right for self-defense based on UN Charter, and today we are in an active phase of peace talks with Armenia. During my last visit to Brussels at the press conference, I raised that issue and said that Azerbaijan made such a proposal and we expect Armenia to respond. Once again, I’d like to say that it was our initiative to start peace negotiations, and now we had already seven rounds of exchange of comments with Armenia counterparts on draft peace agreement. And the recent meeting of the foreign ministers and also meeting of the deputy prime ministers on the issue of border delimitation demonstrate that there is a good chance for settlement. And as I said relatively recently, we are now closer to peace than ever before because during the times of occupation, unfortunately, negotiations did not lead to any result. Actually, for 28 years, Minsk Group of OSCE did not produce any result.
But now, as a result of restoration of territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, we are very close, I think, and I hope to have a breakthrough. And that will be a very serious geopolitical change in the Caucasus. That will mean that peace will come to the Caucasus long-awaited peace. Today we also discussed the issue of energy security with Mr. Secretary General. I informed him that since we met last time in Brussels, two more NATO member states became our partners with respect to natural gas supply. And today Azerbaijan is exporting natural gas to eight countries. Six of them are member states of NATO, two partners to NATO. And I’m sure that in the coming years, the number of our partners will grow. European Commission calls Azerbaijan a reliable partner and a pan-European gas supplier.