Beijing, April 26, AZERTAC

President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has met with President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin in Beijing.

The heads of state made speeches at the event.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said:

- Dear Ilham Heydarovich.

Dear friends.

I am happy to see you. We already had the pleasure of talking to each other briefly, as they say, on the sidelines. I am glad to have the opportunity to talk to you in such a wider format now. We meet on a regular basis. We have the opportunity not only to exchange views and touch base, but also to somehow correct our joint work. In general, it goes very well, in my opinion.

Trade and economic ties are developing. As a matter of fact, we have even created a special interaction mechanism in the trade and economic sphere on your initiative. In my opinion, this initiative is developing well. We will then ask our colleagues from the Russian and Azerbaijani sides to comment on this matter. But on the whole, we are satisfied with the development of our relations. I am sure we will also talk about all aspects of our interaction today. I am very glad to see you.

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President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev said:

- Thank you very much, dear Vladimir Vladimirovich. I am very delighted with our new meeting. Our meetings give a very serious impetus to the development of our relations. We meet on a regular basis and, of course, resolve very important issues of cooperation and interaction in all areas. We are very satisfied with the way our relations develop. They cover all areas. An active political dialogue is under way. We are seeing an increase in turnover. As you noted, there is a special mechanism for promoting specific projects. There is a lot of interest from business circles in working together. Of course, the transport and logistics sector is an important area of cooperation. And we have good results here: there is energy, agriculture and humanitarian cooperation. I think that the level of relations today is such that it allows us the opportunity to address many issues on the bilateral and regional agenda. Therefore, I am sure that our present meeting will also give a good impetus to the future development of relations, which are based on friendship, good-neighborliness, mutual support and respect. We value this relationship highly, appreciate it very much and look forward to moving it forward. Thank you again.

President Vladimir Putin: Thank you. As far as trade is concerned, our trade increased by almost 14 percent last year and reached $2.5 billion. But we have many common issues on the international agenda too. We agreed that we would hold another Russian-Azerbaijani-Iranian summit in Russia in August. So we will talk about that too.

President Ilham Aliyev: Thank you!

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The meeting discussed prospects for cooperation in the political, economic, energy, infrastructure, investment, agricultural, oil and gas, transport, industrial, pharmaceutical, educational, cultural, humanitarian spheres, including the North-South transport corridor. The sides pointed to the successful activities of the intergovernmental commission and the presence of good opportunities for a further expansion of economic cooperation.

During the conversation, the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict was discussed. President Vladimir Putin said that Russia as the Minsk Group co-chair country would continue to make efforts to resolve the conflict.

President Ilham Aliyev appreciated the efforts of Russia as a co-chair country to resolve this conflict. The sides expressed confidence that friendly relations between the two countries would continue to develop successfully.