Dear event participants!

I sincerely welcome you to the 4th meeting of Prosecutors General of the member states of the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) being held in Baku.

ECO was one of the first organizations the Republic of Azerbaijan became a member of after regaining its independence.

It is gratifying that, as an active member of ECO, our cooperation with member states of the organization, based on friendship and mutual respect, is also developing successfully within the framework of international platforms.

As you may know, the Republic of Armenia kept 20 percent of our country's lands under occupation for nearly 30 years. I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to ECO member countries for their principled position and support of Azerbaijan’s fair cause during the occupation and at the subsequent stage. During this period, Armenia committed war crimes and crimes against humanity, carried out ethnic cleansing out, and our territories were used for growing and transporting narcotics and training international terrorists.

After these territories were liberated from occupation in 2020, Azerbaijan faced other challenges. The cities and villages of our country were deliberately razed to the ground and looted by Armenia, all cultural and religious monuments were destroyed, mosques were desecrated and looted. About 4,000 people went missing during the First Karabakh War and in subsequent periods, and the other has yet to provide information about their fate. Armenia has planted about a million landmines in our occupied territories and committed the crimes of urbicide, culturicide and ecocide. As soon as the occupation ended, our state mobilized all its resources and began extensive construction and restoration work in these areas, eliminating the consequences of Armenian vandalism.

Dear participants, economic development and the existence of the rule of law are the prerequisites for the well-being of people in every state. Criminality poses a serious threat to the mentioned factors and requires international fight. In this field, especially in the fight against transnational crime, it is important for prosecutors` offices to work in conditions of mutual cooperation.

At a time when global and regional threats and Islamophobia trends are growing, prosecutors of ECO member states are faced with new tasks. Illegal drug trafficking, human trafficking, corruption, cybercrime, money laundering and other crimes pose a huge threat to the future of humanity, serving as a source of funding for international terrorism.

I am sure that the discussion of important issues will further strengthen cooperation in the direction of creating fertile conditions for the protection of human rights and economic development by giving participants the opportunity to benefit from international experience.

I do believe that today's meeting of Prosecutors General of member states during our country’s presidency in ECO will make an important contribution to the reliable protection of human rights and freedoms in our region, the unification of our efforts in the fight against all forms of criminality, and to the more effective implementation of mutual cooperation.

I wish you all the best and the meeting every success.

Ilham Aliyev

President of the Republic of Azerbaijan

Baku, 14 September 2023