COUNCIL OF AZERBAIJANI AND UKRAINIAN PRESIDENTS HOLDS FIRST MEETING
Baku, April 9 (AZERTAC). The Council of the Presidents of Azerbaijan and Ukraine has today held its first meeting following a one-on-one talk between Presidents Ilham Aliyev and Viktor Yushchenko.
The presidents were joined by the two countries` delegations.
Opening the meeting, President Ilham Aliyev said:
- Esteemed Mr. President!
Dear guests!
I once again welcome you to Azerbaijan. I believe, Mr. President, that your official visit will serve to further develop and strengthen friendly relations between our countries. Today we have already had a complete exchange of views on issues of mutual interest, on issues concerning our bilateral cooperation, and we also stressed great dynamics in the relations between our countries. Our relations are developing very successfully, dynamically, there are good results, and we hope these positive trends will develop and strengthen in the future. We also discussed issues of regional importance. I think we have common views on the situation in the region and prospects of regional cooperation. Today we are holding the first meeting of the Council of the Presidents of Azerbaijan and Ukraine, and this is the product of our previous agreements. We discussed issues which need to be resolved - economic cooperation, energy cooperation and military and technical cooperation. These are major topics of the meeting of the Council of presidents, but, of course, we will not satisfy with this since the format of the relations and the agenda are very broad. I would like to once again express deep satisfaction at your official visit to Azerbaijan. I believe the outcomes of the visit will be practically fruitful, and we will achieve further successes in strengthening the relations between our countries.
Welcome once again.
Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko said:
- Esteemed Ilham Heydarovich!
Dear Azerbaijani friends!
Dear members of the Council!
We agree with Ilham Heydarovich that our relations are at the highest level, that they are the relations of strategic partnership, the relations which enjoy high dynamics of political contacts - the contacts at the level of ministries and different bodies. Frankly speaking, over recent years we have considerably intensified human relations. In other words, we are completely satisfied at the development of our bilateral relations. They have good dynamics, they produce good results. Probably the figures dropped a little - and may be even seriously - today, when the economic crisis has had its impact both on trade and economic cooperation. But this does not mean there are problems in our relations. Most probably this is the impact of circumstances beyond our control, beyond the control of the Ukrainian and Azerbaijani sides. This is why I would first like to highly praise our political, economic and business relations.
The second, it is very important - as we agreed during our previous meetings - that we have a clear plan for developing our relations. This is why the Plan of Action we are going to sign today can be the most clear and exact answer to how we see the prospects of our relations in 2009-2010, and not only within the Council of presidents but also at the ministerial level and at the level of different bodies and business circles.
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