Baku, April 9, AZERTAC

President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has received President of the 75th session of the United Nations General Assembly Volkan Bozkir.

Welcoming Volkan Bozkir, President Ilham Aliyev said:

- You are welcome! We have met many times. You have been to Baku many times but this time you are visiting as the President of the UN General Assembly. It is a great event. I am glad that you are visiting Azerbaijan. I must say that we are proud that a representative of the brotherly country is the President of the UN General Assembly. I know that despite COVID, the 75th session is going well and you have made great effort in that direction.

At the same time, thank you for your support. As you know, we have launched several initiatives on COVID. We held the Summit of the Turkic Council, the Non-Aligned Movement Summit and succeeded in holding a special session of the UN General Assembly on COVID. You have also provided great support. I think that subsequent events showed that this is indeed one of the most important issues on the agenda now. Because vaccine nationalism and unfair distribution of vaccines is an issue on the world agenda today. Azerbaijan was one of the first countries to raise this issue. We are trying to eliminate this injustice today. At the same time, during the COVID pandemic we provided material and humanitarian assistance to more than 30 countries and are committed to continue this activity.

We have traditionally had close relations with UN agencies, and these relations continue. In the post-war period, contacts have become more frequent and these contacts will be continued. Of course, the UN as the world's leading body must be active in the post-conflict period. I have repeatedly stated that the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has been resolved. Azerbaijan has resolved it and implemented the resolutions that remained on paper for almost 30 years. The conflict has now been consigned to history. A new era has begun now – a period of creation, a period of recovery. This has already begun, and we are already in close contact with all UN agencies, including UNESCO. A mission is expected to come on a visit as a result of our discussions with UNESCO. In fact, we repeatedly asked UNESCO during the conflict to send a fact-finding mission to the occupied territories. According to the information we have, our historical, religious and cultural sites have been destroyed by the Armenians, and we wanted international organizations, including UNESCO which is directly involved in this issue, to come and confirm that. Unfortunately, during the conflict, our proposal went unanswered, but a mission is now expected to come on a visit. We welcome that because Armenian savagery and vandalism are obvious in the liberated lands. The more international organizations see it with their own eyes, the clearer the picture of the conflict and Armenian occupation will be in the world community.

In short, dear Volkan Bey, we will continue our work in this direction. I want to thank you for coming to Azerbaijan again. I know that you have recently visited Turkey, your homeland, and you are visiting Azerbaijan, another homeland for you, today.

President of the 75th session of the United Nations General Assembly Volkan Bozkir said:

-Dear Mr. President!

Indeed, I am very pleased and proud to be paying my first visit as President of the UN General Assembly to Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan is a very important country for the UN. The special session of the United Nations chaired by Your Excellency during the pandemic was indeed a timely and extremely important meeting. The many months of your efforts have made me feel proud to chair the organization, so thank you for that.

You are also chairing the Non-Aligned Movement with great success. This is a very important organization for the UN, and it is especially important to be its chairman. I came to thank you for your work in this regard.

Coming to Azerbaijan as a Turkish chairman of the UN General Assembly is a special source of happiness and pride for me. We in New York are closely following all the issues you are talking about.