Baku, April 3, AZERTAC

President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and President of the Republic of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev have held a meeting in an expanded format.

Addressing the event, President Ilham Aliyev said:

-Dear Nursultan Abishevich, dear guests. I once again sincerely greet you in Azerbaijan. Thank you for accepting our invitation to pay an official visit to our country.

This visit is of crucial importance in terms of further strengthening of friendly and brotherly relations between the two countries. First of all, I would like to once again congratulate you on the occasion of Kazakhstan's election as a UN Security Council member. This is the recognition of Kazakhstan's role and your personal authority in the issues of global importance, as well as the recognition of the initiatives you have put forward for strengthening peace not only in our region, but on the planet in general.

We are very pleased with the development of our relations, and we constantly keep in touch. Today, we have already had an exchange of views on a number of issues. We started our work last evening. The discussions held demonstrate that our positions completely coincide on all the discussed issues. Active mutual political cooperation and good prospects for cooperation in the field of economy and transport. We have already discussed this in detail. And now we are going to continue our discussions with the participation of delegations. I am sure that the decisions to be made today will pave the way for the significant increase of goods in a short period of time and create new conditions in terms of regional cooperation. Both Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan are doing a lot to strengthen regional cooperation through specific project, through transport, energy projects, as well as those relating to economic development.

I am also pleased with the fact that our companies have already started making mutual investments, and this yields good results.

I believe that your visit and the decisions to be made will stimulate the private sector in order to increase the volume of investments.

Once again I would like to welcome you and express my confidence that this visit will be successful and bring the two countries even closer to each other. Welcome to Azerbaijan.

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President Nursultan Nazarbayev said:

-Thank you, esteemed Ilham Heydarovich. First of all, I would like to express my deep gratitude to you for the invitation to pay this long-awaited official visit to your country. We feel sincerity and hospitality of our Azerbaijani brothers. Five inter-governmental documents have been prepared, relevant agreements, deals between authorities. These documents will be signed in our presence. These documents mark a new stage in our bilateral relations in recent years, and address the issues of economic and financial cooperation between the two countries.

We have really discussed all the issues. Everything, including our bilateral relations on all fronts, is stipulated in the Declaration, which is ready to be signed. We have found that there is an opportunity to sharply increase commodity turnover, by several times over the next two, three years. The documents and relevant agreements to be signed between authorities, particularly between the ministries of transport and communications are promising a great benefit to both countries.

As for other issues, both economic and political, and cultural and humanitarian ones in order to emphasize our relations, once again we have to focus on the issues as young people`s admission to high schools in our countries, restoration of cultural relations, meetings of intellectuals, and mutual days of culture of the two countries. There are good opportunities, a bridge for this - 130,000 ethnic Azerbaijanis who live in Kazakhstan, who are our citizens. They are our citizens and are fully involved in all the issues. This is a good bridge for our trade relations. I know that they open up joint ventures, build business and help improve our relations. I think we should support this.