OFFICIAL NEWS
PRESIDENT ILHAM ALIYEV RECEIVES PRIME MINISTER OF UKRAINE VIKTOR YANUKOVICH
The President said: I am very glad to see you in Baku on the eve of the New Year despite your rigid schedule. It was very pleased and valuable to continue our dialogue. I hope your visit to our country will mark a new stage in development of bilateral relations, make them more dynamic, and allow them to cover many sectors of economy. I believe you talks with our prime minister have been constructive.
Prime Minister of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovich said: we have just reviewed some results with our colleagues – the Prime Minister of Azerbaijan, ministers and members of the intergovernmental commission, which met in Kiev on the 1st of September. Now we have very rapid dynamics, but new questions have already appeared since then. We are ready to continue the old traditions, which had been initiated in that good time between our republics and peoples. We piously revere Heydar Aliyev’s memory. We remember the helping hand that Azerbaijan gave to Ukraine in its hard time. It happened recently, in 1999, when Ukraine remained without diesel oil just on the eve of the spring field work. Our landowners, our village, remember that time very well.
The Ukrainian Premier called for enhancement of bilateral cooperation not only in trade but also in humanitarian sphere. “We have brought a set of proposals with us, and are ready to receive your own ones,” Viktor Yanukovich said. He mentioned Azerbaijan’s high economic growth rate. “Azerbaijan’s dynamics is the best in the world. To maintain such rate of the economy is not simply a record. This experience should be studied,” he stated.
President Ilham Aliyev pointed out that Azerbaijan-Ukraine cooperation has always been sincere, effective and constructive. On his words, the two countries had very close ties when both were parts of the Soviet Union. “We will continue to help and support each other in all areas,” the President said.