Baku, October 14, AZERTAC

After the one-on-one meeting, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and Prime Minister of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan Muhammad Nawaz Sharif have held a meeting in an expanded format.

President Ilham Aliyev said:

Dear Mr. Prime Minister,

Dear guests,

I would like to welcome you in Azerbaijan. We are very pleased that Mr. Prime Minister is today on an official visit to Azerbaijan. We met in the beginning of this year in Davos and had a very good meeting and conversation, once again confirmed the strategic substance of cooperation. And today the official visit of the Prime Minister of Pakistan shows that we are continuing very close cooperation between our countries.

Pakistan for us is one of the closest friends and we want to develop relations in different areas. We have very close political ties. We discussed with Prime Minister that the level of political cooperation is very high.

We need to strengthen our economic cooperation, cooperation in the areas of investment, stimulate mutual trade to concentrate on humanitarian issues and to have a very broad and very efficient cooperation. We support each other on all the international issues. Azerbaijan always supports Pakistan on the issues related to Kashmir and Pakistan always supports us on the issues related to Nagorno-Karabakh settlement, and in all the international organizations we are together. Today’s visit of the Prime Minister is a good opportunity to review what has been done and also to plan for the future.

I wish you very pleasant visit, Mr. Prime Minister. Thank you for accepting my invitation and visiting Azerbaijan today. Welcome once again.

Prime Minister of Pakistan Muhammad Nawaz Sharif said:

Thank you, Mr. President, first of all, I’d like to say how honored we are to visit your beautiful country. We are very-very happy to see Baku. Baku transformed into such a beautiful city in the last decade or a decade and a half, less than fifteen years’ time. It is remarkable. As I mentioned I was in Baku in 1998. So it’s a matter of a personal privilege to be on an official visit. Please accept my gratitude for the warm welcome that has been accorded to me and members of my delegation in this beautiful city. At the outset, please allow me to convey our heartiest felicitations and best wishes to you and the people of Azerbaijan on the National Day which is on the 18th of October.

I must say, Mr. President, that the people of Pakistan highly appreciate the vision of your distinguished father, the late president Heydar Aliyev, and admire the progress and development of brotherly Azerbaijan under your wise and deft leadership. The progress achieved by Azerbaijan over the past quarter of a century has been remarkable.

The development and success of Azerbaijan is a matter of pride for all Muslim countries and a role model for many developing countries. I must say that since yesterday we have been very impressed and I said this categorically to Mr. President that I have never seen such a clean city in the world. Maybe if I am forgetting I have seen one, but this is surely one of the cleanest cities that I have ever visited. Thank you once again.