President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, who is in Sochi on a working visit, has come to the House of Receptions of the Grand Polyana Hotel.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev met President Ilham Aliyev at the House of Receptions.

The heads of state first had their picture taken.

Then a meeting was held between President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev.

Saluting the President of Azerbaijan, President Dmitry Medvedev said:

Dear Ilham Heydar oglu, let me salute you from the bottom of my heart.

I am pleased that our tradition of meeting in Sochi in winter is continuing. This is also a good opportunity for exchanging views on the development of Russian-Azerbaijani cooperation, discussing the future and assessing what happened last year. Because we have certain results. I think these are good results. A number of important and serious activities have been held from both economic and humanitarian perspective. Of course, we also need to review the situation in our region. Our countries are closely attached to the Caucasus. Therefore, we cannot remain indifferent to the developments in the Caucasus and other regions around the world that are also close to us.

Of course, our trilateral meeting with the participation of the Armenian president is also very important. There have been quite a lot of such meetings in recent years. We have achieved progress on some issues, while on others serious difficulties still remain.

But I think that this is a useful dialogue. I do hope that such relations will be continued in the future.

Very warm welcome to Sochi in this snowy weather again! I hope that in addition to our communication you will also have some rest here.

Expressing his gratitude for the invitation, President Ilham Aliyev said:

Dmitry Anatolyevich, thank you very much for inviting me to come to Sochi!

This is a very good tradition indeed. It is an opportunity to see and communicate with each other, although our meetings take place quite frequently – in fact, we met in Moscow last month. This is reflected in the nature and spirit of relations between our countries, their dynamism, regular consultations and the potential for a further development of bilateral relations in all directions.

I agree that our bilateral affairs were very successful last year: our political ties have strengthened, new initiatives put forward, our trade growth is measured in double digits and its structure is improving. We are witnessing very positive dynamics in the entire spectrum of bilateral relations. This is very gratifying. We are attaching great importance to cooperation with Russia. Russia is our strategic partner. In 2011, this partnership started to be reinforced with major deeds.

I also want to thank you for your continued effort to resolve the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh. There have been many meetings. As you have said, there have been reassuring aspects and those deepening pessimism. But the process is ongoing and the fact that you are continuing your efforts raises optimism. Azerbaijan is interested in resolving this conflict in order to establish peace in the region.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you again for Russia’s support of Azerbaijan in its election to the UN Security Council.

Dmitry Medvedev: I congratulate you again.

Ilham Aliyev: Thank you very much. This support has been very effective and sincere, and we – both the leadership and the people of Azerbaijan – are very grateful to you for that. Let me reassure you that we will work in close cooperation with you in the Security Council in the next two years and try to live up to the expectations of all the 155 countries that supported us.

Thank you very much again for this opportunity. I do hope that 2012 will be a successful year for our relations.

Dmitry Medvedev: We sincerely hope so.