Moscow, April 23 (AZERTAC). Head of Dagestan Ramazan Abdulatipov has met a delegation of Azerbaijan participating in the All-Russian Cultural-Investment Forum on the culture and economics of regional policy, which opened in Makhachkala.

The delegation is composed of Minister of Culture and Tourism of Azerbaijan Abulfas Garayev, MP Rauf Aliyev, Rector of the Uzeyir Hajibeyli Baku Music Academy Farhad Badalbeyli.

The meeting was also attended by chairman of the government of the Republic of Dagestan Abdusamad Gamidov, head of the administration of the head and government of the Republic of Dagestan Ramazan Aliyev.

Ramazan Abdulatipov noted that the forum is organized as part of the annually held Moscow forum of culture “Culture as strategic resource of Russia in the 21st century”, international symposium “Higher educational institutions of culture and art in the world educational space” and the Dagestan Economic Forum.

The Head of the Republic highlighted the successful development of Azerbaijan. According to him, unfortunately there has not been any joint economic and cultural project implemented with Dagestan so far.

“In early 20th century our relations with Azerbaijan were better than now. You have the richest culture and beautiful people. We will be developing our relations,” Abdulatipov said.

He said the Dagestani official delegation led by chairman of the government Abdusamad Gamidov has recently visited Baku, and a few days later, the working meeting on Azerbaijan`s participation in the events marking the 2000th anniversary of the oldest city of Russia took place in Derbent. Major discussions revolved around reconstruction of the Heydar Aliyev Street and choosing the place for construction of the Olympic complex.

“Tens of Azerbaijani projects must be realized in Dagestan and the same amount of Dagestani ones in Azerbaijan. Dagestanis and Azerbaijanis are people of close culture, related traditions,” Abdulatipov underlined.

For his part, Minister Abulfas Garayev read out the message of President Ilham Aliyev. The letter says Azerbaijan and Dagestan are the republics which must be always together since they share common goals, tasks of development of the Caspian region.

“We are linked with history and culture. You are absolutely right that our ties must be stronger. The potential exists. We want to support our national culture that we have. Yesterday, our delegation visited Derbent, the Narin Kala fortress. This is a historical site uniting two our peoples,” Abulfas Garayev underlined.

Minister of Culture and Tourism of Azerbaijan invited the Head of Dagestan to the annually held forum on intercultural dialogue, which, he underlined, is supported by five international organizations.

Many Dagestanis are living in Azerbaijan. Badalbayli said that some popular songs in Dagestani languages were recorded and given as CDs to schools.

The Head of Dagestan said the Ministry of Culture of the Republic has prepared CDs with classical music and masterpieces by Dagestani composers.

The forum was organized by government of Dagestan and Moscow State University of Culture and Arts of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation.