Negotiations between Ilham Aliyev and Islam Karimov in an expanded format

After a one-on-one meeting, negotiations between Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Uzbekistani President Islam Karimov were held in Tashkent in an expanded format with the participation of delegations.

Addressing the meeting participants, President Islam Karimov said:

- Dear Ilham Heydarovich,

Dear members of the Azerbaijani delegation, friends.

It gives me great pleasure to welcome you on the Uzbek land and to express my deep respect for the brotherly people of Azerbaijan. Taking this opportunity, I would like to stress once again that people in Uzbekistan appreciate and cherish the warm and friendly bilateral interstate relations between Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan. Meetings between the presidents, high-level meetings at the ministerial level, relevant agencies and at the business level are always in demand. We view this official visit by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliev to Uzbekistan as a good opportunity for an objective assessment of the dynamics and the content of bilateral and multilateral relations, the confidential exchange of views, the definition of the major cooperation priorities between our countries.

We are pleased to remember the fruitful visit of the Uzbek delegation to Azerbaijan in 2008 and the unforgettable traditional Azerbaijani hospitality and cordiality shown to us. The centuries-long commonality of our national traditions, language, culture, religion, our common national interests and the long-term challenges facing us in modern conditions certainly represent important and fertile ground for the manifestation of sincere relations of mutual respect and friendship between our countries and peoples. Speaking the language quite understandable for the Azerbaijanis and Uzbeks, “Bizim ulduzlarımız müştərək, dilimiz bir, dinimiz bir, ürəklərimiz birdir” (”We live under the same stars, we have a common language, religion, our hearts beat in unison”).

I would like to take this opportunity to express, on my own behalf and on behalf our public, deep respect for the memory of Heydar Aliyevich Aliyev, an outstanding personality who selflessly devoted his life, all his energy and enormous talent of a statesman to the revival of his country, to serving it. He has laid the foundation of the present-day and future of Azerbaijan. We remember and appreciate him - a visionary politician and a wise man who did so much to strengthen the relations of mutual trust between Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan. Of course, we in Uzbekistan are aware what enormous effort, strength, energy and hard work is required from you, Ilham Heydarovich, to implement the course towards a deeply thought-out and balanced foreign and domestic policy, economic strength and potential, and to secure your country’s growing international authority. The program on effective use of the country’s extensive resources, economic diversification, expansion of its exports, sustained improvement of living standards of the population deserves great commendation. If we consider that all this is happening in the difficult conditions of continued confrontation in the South Caucasus, the threats and challenges of the surrounding world, the ongoing global financial crisis, it is not too difficult to appreciate the importance of these achievements.

Noting that the relations with Azerbaijan are of strategic nature, the President of Uzbekistan stressed that the strengthening of bilateral ties can contribute to the long-term stability in the South Caucasus and Central Asia. Indicating that relations between Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan have great prospects, Islam Karimov stressed the importance of cooperation in the implementation of major regional projects. Pointing to the importance of close coordination between the two countries in foreign policy, President Karimov emphasized the importance of political consultations. Referring then to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the Uzbek leader said:

- I would like to note that the position of Uzbekistan on the issue of Nagorno-Karabakh remains unchanged, which was further confirmed in the discussion of a relevant resolution of the UN General Assembly in 2008. Uzbekistan has consistently advocated and continues to advocate for a peaceful, political solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, and believes that the main condition for resolving the problem is the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Azerbaijan.

Touching upon economic relations between Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan, President Islam Karimov said:

- Dear friends, of course, the deepening of economic, trade and investment ties is a priority area of bilateral cooperation – I would even say the starting point for the promotion of all of our relationships. I would like to note that in the conditions of the global financial downturn, issues relating to the identification of joint programs of action, strengthening of cooperation between enterprises and companies of the two states, preservation and enhancement of mutual trade are extremely relevant. I want to repeat that transportation routes from Central Asia across the Caspian Sea, then through the Caucasus to the Black and Mediterranean Seas are of particular relevance today. In this context, the interest in using the port of Baku as an important transport hub, which enables the development of a new transport corridor Baku-Tbilisi-Kars with access to markets in South and Central Europe significantly increases.

With regard to cultural relations between the two countries and peoples, the President of Uzbekistan said:

- The traditional cultural and humanitarian ties are a crucial factor in building confidence and mutual respect between fraternal Uzbek and Azerbaijani peoples. A graphic example of mutual thrust, the historical mutual respect between the Azerbaijanis and Uzbeks has been the opening, together with you, dear Ilham Heydarovich, of monuments to our great ancestors Nizami and Alisher Navoiy in the cities of Tashkent and Baku, the naming of a street in the capital of Azerbaijan after renowned astronomer Mirza Ulugbek. I am confident that the Azerbaijani Cultural Center, which has been opened during your visit and is named after the illustrious son of the Azerbaijani people, Heydar Aliyev, will serve the development of the good traditions of friendship between the two nations.

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

- Thank you, dear Islam Abduganiyevich, for your kind words, thank you for the invitation to pay an official visit to the brotherly Uzbekistan. I am attaching great importance to this visit. I am confident that the visit will produce very good results which will further bring our countries and peoples closer together and create new conditions for a successful cooperation, which is expanding and being filled with new meaning.

I am very grateful for your kind words about my father, great leader Heydar Aliyev, with whom you are bound by many years of friendship and cooperation. I am also very glad that the traditions laid out by you are continuing today, that our two countries, two brotherly peoples very effectively interact and aspire to even greater convergence. You, dear Islam Abduganiyevich, and Heydar Aliyev laid the foundations of modern Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan. It was on your vision, wisdom and political will that the future of our countries depended because all former Soviet republics were in relatively similar conditions and faced the same challenges and problems after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Therefore, the successful development of our countries is primarily the result of the work done by our leaders. I am very pleased to observe and receive information from various sources regarding dynamic and successful development of Uzbekistan.

Stressing that Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan share common values, a rich historical and cultural heritage, President Ilham Aliyev said that all this creates a solid foundation for the development of bilateral relations. “If we add the potentially large economic projects to the successful development of our relations based on a solid foundation of political and economic links, a unique regional format will emerge,” the head of Azerbaijan said, noting that the two countries are developing dynamically and playing an important part in regional stability:

- We are very grateful to Uzbekistan for its continuously principled position on the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh. This support and in-depth understanding of the essence of the conflict and its causes are very important to us. And your statement today on this subject is also of great importance because the conflict and its resolution are long overdue. We are very grateful for the position of Uzbekistan, which was expressed in the vote at the UN General Assembly on the situation in occupied Azerbaijani territories in 2008. We are striving to resolve the conflict as soon as possible because it is our land that is under occupation. A policy of ethnic cleansing was carried out against the Azerbaijanis, war crimes were perpetrated, including the genocide of the peaceful population in Khojali, when Armenian occupying troops killed 613 civilians, 100 of them young children.

Nagorno-Karabakh is historical Azerbaijani land. The word Karabakh itself has our roots. This word doesn’t mean anything in Armenian:

The main city of Nagorno-Karabakh, Khankendi, was created with this name - Khankendi. I don’t think it needs translation. In Soviet times, the city was given the name of Stepanakert, after Bolshevik Stepan Shaumyan, one of the organizers of massacres against civilian population of Baku in 1918. In other words, even such detail as place-names clearly indicates that this is native Azerbaijani land where our people lived for centuries. Starting from the first half of the 19th century, the Armenian population began to move from other regions of Nagorno-Karabakh in large numbers, and by the time the Soviet Union collapsed Azerbaijanis were subjected to ethnic cleansing, deportations and massacres - just as citizens of Azerbaijan who had lived in seven regions around Nagorno-Karabakh from where the Azerbaijani population, hundreds of thousands of people, were ousted. Today, they represent destroyed cities and villages, national wealth has been looted, museums and cemeteries desecrated, mosques razed to the ground. And this injustice has lasted for longer than a decade.

International organizations have already expressed their position on the issue - the UN Security Council has adopted four resolutions, the UN General Assembly, the Organization of Islamic Conference, the European Parliament, the Council of Europe. But, unfortunately, the conflict still remains unresolved. We expect the international community, primarily the countries directly involved in the settlement process, to exert maximum effort and proceed from the principles of international law in matters related to the speediest settlement of the conflict, which I am sure is in the interests of all countries in the region. Azerbaijan, for its part, will never accept this situation, our people will never put up with it, and even the children whose parents were driven out of Nagorno-Karabakh and territories around it who were born in Baku and other cities of Azerbaijan, although they have never been in these lands, they too live with a dream - to return to their ancestral homeland. And I am sure that this day will come. I have no doubt that Azerbaijan will restore its territorial integrity, restore justice, and all our citizens will return to their historic lands. So I want to thank you once again for your understanding and support, and most importantly, for the principled position, which is based on international law.

Touching upon cooperation between Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan in the transport sphere, President Ilham Aliyev said:

- I think we will conduct more active consultations on the establishment of railway communication. As you know, we are working on that and the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway line should begin to operate in two years. As a result, a completely new artery will open - safe, cost-effective and attractive to suppliers. It will link continents. This will be the railway of friendship, cooperation and mutual benefit.

Speaking about the development of humanitarian relations, the Azerbaijani President gave a positive assessment to cooperation in this sphere:

- We very much appreciate the traditional humanitarian cooperation between our countries. This is quite natural, because our peoples are brothers, close nations. We are very fond of Uzbek literature, music, culture, i.e. it is as dear for us as it is for you. And the fact that there are monuments to outstanding representatives of our peoples in our capitals today is also an indicator of our relationship, as well as a demonstration of the feelings we have for each other.