President of Azerbaijan Republic Ilham Aliyev received ex-adviser for national security issues to the US President Zbignew Bzezhinski and his entourage at the President Office, 7 November.

Warmly greeting the guests, President Ilham Aliyev said:

“ Dear Mr. Bzezhinski, dear guests, I welcome all of you, you are welcome to Azerbaijan. You are well known in Azerbaijan, this is not your first visit to Azerbaijan. You are known in our country as a friend of Azerbaijan.

Mr. Bzezhinski, you and Heydar Aliyev are connected by a great friendship and I am an eyewitness of it. You have met several times, had exchange of views on numerous issues. Your valuable recommendations have been always greatly assisting us.

Unfortunately, Mr. President could not run at the current elections because of his health problems. However, his policy is vital in Azerbaijan and will be continued. In future, Azerbaijan will develop on the base of the principles pre-determined by him. In the last decade, Azerbaijan under the leadership of Heydar Aliyev has passed a great and success way, dynamically developed. At the same time, our relations with the United States have rapidly developed. We have large cooperation. In all the fields – in economy, in realization of Azerbaijan’s oil-gas strategy, our relations in combat against terrorism are developing increasingly rapidly, and we are pleased with it. I hope our strategic cooperation will go ahead and the United States as one of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs will make its efforts in solution of the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno Karabakh conflict. Of course, settlement of this conflict is possible only on the norms of international law, and in the frame of territorial integrity of Azerbaijan.

You are already for the second day in Baku and I know that you had numerous meetings. I am convinced that your impressions of the meetings and visit will form a comprehensive and full idea on Azerbaijan, and our cooperation will further develop”.

Expressing his gratitude for cordial reception, Mr. Zbignew Bzezhinski said:

“Mr. President, I would like to warmly congratulate You on your election as the head of state. At the same time, I would like You to pass my sincerest greetings and best wishes to You father Heydar Aliyev. And not only mine, convey, please, also the greetings of my spouse. Indeed, every time when we came to Baku we parted with great pleasure and delight. I would say, we keep hitherto the rich impressions he made on us.

In the passed ten years, the changes happened in Baku made deep impressions on us. Perhaps, all these happened under President Heydar Aliyev’s policy. These changes have laid good foundation for future development. I consider that just these changes, say, will play the role of bow and the shot arrows will lead to future development. There is a reason for frequent visits of my colleagues and me, that is, it is by chance. It is also not eventually that we have chosen Azerbaijan as our major partnership in this region. We, indeed, accept Azerbaijan as an important country for the United States and understand it well.

I will not present my colleagues separately, I am sure that you have sufficient information on them. The only thing I would note that they are enough experienced in connection with this region. Nevertheless, I would name the ambassador of America. Though our meeting is of personal character, he participates at this meeting.

One of the key goals of our visit to Baku is to have long-term appraisal connected with the region. It is interesting how should be the estimated-for-a-long-term relations of the United States with your region. In the United States, we regard this question as an impartial structure, and think that extension of the Euro-Atlantic space is necessary, and it, in fact, is the center of peace. This is, generally, important for both Euro-Atlantic space and the world.

Here, we can view several phases of extension. As for the first phase, we can say that this was extension of both NATO and European Union. That is, extension of these structures had to envelope Poland, Hungary and Czech.

Then, the second phase commenced and another seven countries joined NATO, there, at the same time opened perspective for them to be admitted to the European Union.

The first phase may be called the Warsaw phase and the second the Vilnius phase, conditionally. The third is expected. We can talk on this phase in the next year at the NATO’S Istanbul Summit. We can call it as Kiev phase either. Here, the major talks will be concern Ukraine. Then it may extend to other post-soviet republics. We would like to have in this context, talks with you, be aware of your views on the issue, how you estimate the situation here, and view the relations with neighboring countries. It is known that there are, indeed, great and notable problems between you and the neighbors. We would like to know how you estimate the situation, how you view at the regional cooperation, generally, how you see cooperation with other countries, and how you see stability in the region.

Mr. President, I would once again to express my gratitude to You for today’s meeting Thank you very much, it is a great honor to continue with You the dialogue as with the former President.

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Ambassador of Azrebaijan in Washington Hafiz pashayev, the US ambassador to Azerbaijan Rino Harnish, head of the foeirgn relatiofns department of President Administration Novruz Mammadov and deputy foerign mniister Araz Azimov particoipated at the meeting.