President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has received Secretary General of the Organization of Turkic States Baghdad Amreyev.

Welcoming Baghdad Amreyev, President Ilham Aliyev said: Dear Baghdad Kultayevich, taking the opportunity of your being on a visit to Azerbaijan, I have invited you, first of all, to express my gratitude for the years of service as General Secretary of our organization and also to present to you the high order of Azerbaijan – the Order of Dostlug. This is a well-deserved award. You as Secretary General of the Organization of Turkic States have played and continue to play an important part in strengthening our unity. We have repeatedly met both when you visited Azerbaijan and within the framework of international events. I have always seen that you sincerely want the unity of all Turkic states. It is also no coincidence that during your chairmanship the organization became what it is and changed its name. I am sure this is not only a change of name, but also a change in the vector of development. I think there is an understanding in all member countries of our organization of the need to strengthen unity.

You know that I have always been very attentive to cooperation within our organization and also in a bilateral format. The strengthening of ties and the fraternal relations with countries of the Turkic world are among key foreign policy priorities for Azerbaijan. It is no coincidence that even we look at the latest chronology of my visits and the visits of the heads of state of fraternal countries, you can see that we are giving additional dynamism.

The relations with all Turkic-speaking countries are a priority for us. I am sure that the upcoming summit in Samarkand will once again confirm our unity. We must rally even closer around common interests especially in the current geopolitical situation, proceeding from the need for mutual support, for the strengthening of independence and sovereignty of our states, and in order to fill our cooperation with specific content. In this case, in addition to political interaction, I think one of the important areas in the coming years will be cooperation in the field of strengthening security measures. Since the world is changing and has already changed, new threats and new challenges are already knocking at the door, so to speak. Therefore, along with economic cooperation, cooperation in transport, humanitarian and other areas will be one of the priorities, I think. For my part, I want to say that Azerbaijan will continue to do everything to strengthen the unity of the Turkic world. This is a great heritage of our ancestors. The Turkic world, unfortunately, has been fragmented over the course of various stages of history, and now there are still issues that require our attention and a well-concerted policy. Within the framework of national states, the states of the Turkic world are already united.

The Turkic world, of course, is much broader than the borders of national member states of the Organization of Turkic States. Therefore, I am sure that our humanitarian ties, contacts between people, with representatives of Turkic-speaking peoples living on a vast geography will also be in demand in the future. In any case, we, for our part, will do everything to strengthen the unity among countries of our organization, support our brothers living in various countries of the world, and we are talking of tens of millions of our blood brothers. There are many more Azerbaijanis living outside Azerbaijan than in the country alone. Of course, their security, their rights and well-being are of the utmost importance to us. We will continue to do everything to help the Azerbaijanis who have found themselves cut off from our state, to assist them in their development so that they preserve the Azerbaijani language, Azerbaijani traditions, Azerbaijani culture, remain true to the principles of Azerbaijanism and never cut off ties with their historical homeland, just as many representatives of other peoples of our fraternal Turkic states live outside their states. But I also know that all leaders of the Turkic states attach great importance to how the rights of their brothers are secured in various countries.

Therefore, I think we should also seriously discuss this topic within the framework of the Organization of Turkic States in the coming years – namely, the rights and security, the national identity of our brothers who, by the will of fate, live outside the member countries of the Organization of Turkic States.

We have discussed these topics in one way or another, and I have always seen you as someone deeply attached to Turkic roots. I am saying this openly. For me, this is a very important factor, because we must all remember our roots and strive to bring our countries closer together. The Turkic world is a big family and a great asset on a global scale. It has a huge potential, geography, transport routes, energy resources, human and intellectual potential. Therefore, unity is our strength.

It is with great pleasure that I present to you this well-deserved award. I want to express my gratitude to you on my own behalf and on behalf of the Azerbaijani people, all your friends and acquaintances, there are several dozen, maybe more than a hundred of them in Azerbaijan, and present this award to you with a sense of gratitude and wishes of health, well-being and further success.

Secretary General of the Organization of Turkic States Baghdad Amreyev: Thank you very much.

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President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev presented the Order of “Dostlug” to Baghdad Amreyev.

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Baghdad Amreyev: First of all, it is a great honor for me to receive this order from your hands – the outstanding leader of Turkic peoples who have made a huge contribution to the unity of Turkic peoples, a tremendous personal contribution. It is a great honor to receive this award. Indeed, as you said, I have made every effort to contribute to the strengthening of unity among Turkic peoples, creating the basis for our common future. Under your leadership, the leadership of our leaders, all these years I have made every effort and, together with my team, we have tried to create the strongest foundation to the maximum extent possible. Under your leadership, we have really managed to create the infrastructure of Turkic unity over all these years. Political cooperation has become a reality, economic cooperation is developing, there is cooperation in the field of transport and in other sectors of the economy. Cultural and humanitarian cooperation is the basis of our relations. We have even switched to cooperation in the field of security. We recently held a meeting of heads of our countries' security councils. Our special services are working. We have created a good basis for this area. We have established military-technical cooperation and military cooperation between our countries both on a bilateral basis and, as it were, on a wider scale.