President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has held an expanded meeting with President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen.

The head of state welcomed the President of the European Commission.

They then posed for official photos.

Addressing the event, President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev said:

- Welcome Madam President. I am very glad to see you. I thank you for your visit. Your visit really demonstrates the importance of our bilateral cooperation. We are happy that the relations between the European Union and Azerbaijan are developing very successfully within the framework of bilateral cooperation, as well as the Eastern Partnership. We have very good achievements in terms of the development of political relations, in the true sense of the word. And political contacts are very active. You know that the EU is our major trading partner and I am sure that the projects which we are planning to implement in the coming years will increase our trade cooperation. Of course, energy cooperation was always on top of our agenda and today, in particular. So, I think we have very good results, very good achievements and after the visit of Madam Commissioner earlier this year we started energy dialogue. So I think that’s also a very good sign of mutual interest. The issues related to energy security definitely today are one of the top issues on global agenda. But not only that, we are interested in expanding cooperation in the area of education, area of transportation and in all areas. Actually, what we are now discussing with respect to the new agreement between EU and Azerbaijan covers all areas of our potential cooperation. I am sure that during your visit we will discuss this and other issues, also we have a very important ceremony today which we also mark, I think, the beginning of new broad cooperation in energy. Welcome, wish you a pleasant stay.

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President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen said:

-Thank you very much, Mr. President, for the warm welcome here. Indeed as you said, we have a long-standing partnership. Eastern Partnership had specifically with Azerbaijan, also an excellent relationship that we want to deepen now. If you look at the Memorandum of Understanding that we are signing today, I first of all, really want to commend the two of us but maybe building on an excellent work that has been done by our collaborators for achieving this MoU. It puts an emphasis on a reliable partnership in the energy sector and it also looks forward towards the mid and long-term with an emphasis on renewable energy. So, it encompasses all that we are discussing in detail today. But of course, there’s more there, than the MoU, as you said, the agreement between Azerbaijan and the European Union. We just discussed with the Foreign Minister we should give it a push now, so that we move forward a lot to discuss and many thanks again for the warm welcome.