Joint press statements of Presidents of Azerbaijan and Latvia

Statement by Latvian President Valdis Zatlers

- It is my delight to welcome my friend, President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, here in Rīga. The atmosphere of his visit was very good, and we have very fine intentions in terms of strengthening economic and cultural co-operation between our countries.

The relationship between our countries has developed very positively. We can see, for instance, that during these years of economic decline, the level of economic co-operation between Azerbaijan and Latvia has nevertheless increased by 10%. The business forum that is taking place today and the one which took place during my visit to Baku represent another step toward closer economic relations between us. The Azerbaijani-Latvian Business Council is being established today, and that means that stronger links between the two countries will be ensured not just by governments and heads of state, but also by businesspeople themselves.

As we look into the future, we see that we can use the Eastern Partnership project to improve our bilateral relations, as well as to facilitate closer co-operation between the EU and Azerbaijan. We had a very good discussion about co-operation in education, information technologies and national governance. We also talked about the partnership that could be established between our countries when it comes to border guards and customs issues. I believe that it is of key importance for the Eastern Partnership programme to be successful. It is important for Azerbaijan to speak about this partnership very clearly in terms of the context in which it sees the partnership and the way in which Latvia can make an investment in promoting the relationship between the EU and Azerbaijan. Of course, we also talked about energy issues, because Azerbaijan performs a specific and important role in the delivery of energy resources to Europe. On both sides we will be doing everything possible to increase this role even further.

There were many other questions that we discussed. I would be happy now to answer your questions.

Statement by President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev

- Mr President, dear ladies and gentlemen, first of all I would like to point out that I am very glad to be again in a friendly Latvia. Mr President, I would like to stress my gratitude to you for having invited me to Latvia. I am confident that my visit will play important role for the development of Latvia and Azerbaijani relationship. Mr President, we remember your visit to Azerbaijan in 2009 and the agreements reached during the visit are being implemented successfully. Important documents, signed today, I am confident that these documents will define our relationship in a years to come. Among the signed documents I would like to highlight the joint declaration, because it is very important document, which covers all the future trends of our cooperation in the future. We can say that Latvian President has some aspects issued we have discussed today. I would like just to add both, in political, economical and culture fields we have broad perspective and opportunities for cooperation. Our countries are friendly countries. Our political relationship is at the highest level, and I am sure that should be done in economic spheres will also help to bring these relationships up to the level of political relationship. For those reasons we will have business forum. That is very important for us, and together with me more than 50 business people came from Azerbaijan to Latvia to take part in that event and to conduct the exchange of point of views with themselves.

As for an energy issues are concerned I would like to say that Azerbaijan is a very successful cooperating with the European Union. On January 13, President of European Commission Mr José Manuel Barroso has been visited out country, ending it we have signed the dual declaration managing issues between Azerbaijan and European Union. And of course this declaration is defining the trends of our future cooperation. I am confident that the issues covered in that declaration will be able to be started to implement in 2011. Azerbaijan has rich oil and gas resources, and our country is supplying the oil and gas to various suppliers and our country is ready to give its contribution to energy security of Europe.

Today we have also exchanged our views on regional issues. In particular, we have touched upon the Armenian – Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. I have briefed President Zatlers about the latest status of the talks about Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. This issue is pending still over the years, and I think that it should be solved in accordance with international law norms, in a frame of a territorial integrity of the Republic Azerbaijan. International organization like United Nations, OSCE, the Council of Europe, European Parliament and other organizations have adopted their resolution, and this should be solved at a base of these resolutions.

As far as for Eastern Partnership is concerned, Azerbaijan expresses great hopes to the implementation of this programme. I am confident that the implementation of this programme will bring us closer to Europe. Thank you.