Baku, February 8, AZERTAC

AZERTAC is a media bridge between Azerbaijan and the Arab world, said Editor-in-chief of the Egyptian Al-Akhbar newspaper Mohammad Salama at a meeting with AZERTAC Chairman of Board Aslan Aslanov.

Mohammad Salama, who is one of the journalists from Egypt, Morocco and UEA visiting Azerbaijan to cover the upcoming parliamentary elections in the country on February 9, said that he had several times been to the country and deeply impressed with the rapid development here. He mentioned that he had also published a number of books dedicated to Azerbaijan, adding that in his investigations on the 20 January events, Khojaly genocide and the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict he had mainly used the articles published by AZERTAC.

AZERTAC Chairman of the Board Aslan Aslanov highlighted the history of relations between Azerbaijan and the Arab countries, also pointing out the contributions of the information exchange carried out by the media outlets to bring nations closer to each other.

Arab journalists hailed the rapid development of Azerbaijan, freedom of the speech and press, noting that the election process in the country was being held in accordance with the principles of transparency and democracy.

Aslan Aslanov said President Ilham Aliyev always paid great attention to the development of cooperation with the OIC member states. The sides also hailed that First Vice-President Mehriban Aliyeva’s significant contributions to the strengthening of friendly relations between the two nations. The OIC’s support for Azerbaijan's rightful position on the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict was welcomed.

“Close partnership has been established between AZERTAC and the news agencies of Arab countries. We regularly maintain exchange of information with Egypt’s MENA, Saudi Arabia’s SPA, Kuwait’s KUNA, Lebanon’s NNA, United Arab Emirates’ WAM and Qatar’s QNA news agencies. The heads of a number of newspapers from these countries have also visited our agency, whom we have agreed to expand our cooperation with. Our agency will soon resume the activity of it’s correspondent bureau in Cairo, which I think will encourage further engagement with the media outlets of the Middle East,” Aslan Aslan mentioned.

AZERTAC has been a member of the Executive Council of the Union of OIC News Agencies (UNA) since 2017, which brings together 57 news agencies from the Islamic world. The agency also maintains close cooperation with its counterparts from the Organization of Asia-Pacific News Agencies (OANA).

Editor-in-chief of Egyptian newspaper Diplomacy Ashraf Abu Arif, editor of UAE’s Alfajr newspaper Sharif Al Basil and others emphasized that they were constantly following news published by AZERTAC in Arabic. AZERTAC’s role as a media bridge between Azerbaijan and the Arab world was hailed, the organization of mutual visits of journalists, preparation of reports about the countries, and other cooperation issues were discussed at the meeting.

Mohammed Salama and Director of Center for Dialogue for Political Studies Ahmed Taher presented books and magazines on Azerbaijan to AZERTAC’s Chairman of Board Aslan Aslanov.

Representatives of media outlets, including Al-Bayan, Al-Islah and At-Tanmia newspapers, the Iris media Press Services and UNA, as well as first secretary of the Azerbaijani Embassy in the UAE Eldaniz Musayev and second secretary of the Azerbaijani Embassy in Egypt Emil Rahimov also attended the meeting.