President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has received a delegation led by EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus Toivo Klaar.

The head of state hailed the successful development of Azerbaijan-EU cooperation.

President Ilham Aliyev pointed to the European Commission Vice-President for Energy Union, co-chair Maros Sefcovic's participation in the 4th Ministerial Meeting of the Southern Gas Corridor Advisory Council in Baku. The head of state underlined that they held fruitful discussions with Maros Sefcovic on the development of bilateral relations in a number of areas, including energy.

The President praised very good and dynamic development of bilateral relations in all areas since his recent visit to the European Commission.

President Ilham Aliyev noted the importance of expanding Azerbaijan-EU cooperation not only in energy field, but also in a number of other areas, including politics, trade, investment, transport, security, and culture, saying all this is featured in a new agreement between the European Union and Azerbaijan which is under development.

EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus Toivo Klaar noted that the EU-Azerbaijan relations continue to develop in all areas, hailing good prospects for bilateral cooperation.

They exchanged views on the settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict through negotiations. The importance of making efforts to ensure peaceful settlement of the dispute through talks was underlined at the meeting.

President Ilham Aliyev described Armenia's hypocritical and non-constructive position as the key impediment to achieving progress in negotiations. "Armenia continues its policy of aggression and destroys Azerbaijan's national, religious, and historical monuments in our occupied lands."

The head of state emphasized that for the soonest settlement of the conflict, Armenia must begin to withdraw its forces from the occupied lands and the norms and principles of international law must be established.