President Ilham Aliyev meets with President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev in Astana [UPDATE]

President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has met with President of the Republic of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev in Astana.

Addressing the event, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said:

- Dear Ilham Heydar oglu, first of all, I would like to express my gratitude to you for coming here, for participating in the Summit and for the positive contribution you have made to the achievement of the final results. I do appreciate that. You have allocated time for this, so thank you very much.

As for our bilateral relations, I would like to start by expressing gratitude to you for the hospitality shown during my visit to the beautiful city of Baku.

It seems to me that our talks were productive, interesting and actually attracted the attention of political and economic circles abroad. Therefore, we consider Azerbaijan our ally and strategic partner, and we will always adhere to this line. Azerbaijan plays a very important part not only in its region, but on a much broader geographical scale. I think we have a lot in common, the desire to develop cooperation in various fields. We discussed this in detail in Baku.

Now on the agenda is the development of the so-called Middle Corridor. I had talks with the President of Turkiye yesterday. He referred to the meeting of the heads of relevant departments, which took place in Baku, literally several times. Naturally, they aim to continue working in this format. From our side, of course, there will be no problems. On the contrary, we are also interested. In my public speeches, I have repeatedly spoken about the Trans-Caspian route, the so-called Middle Corridor.

We have traditional ties in various fields, including the humanitarian sphere, and all this will be continued. We talked about the fact that the street named after the outstanding Azerbaijani statesman Heydar Aliyev should be moved to another place in our capital, to a more worthy place, as it were. And such a place has been found. I have approved it. So it's a matter of time.

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President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev said:

- Thank you very much, dear Kassym-Jomart Kemelevich. First of all, thank you for the invitation. I am very glad to be visiting fraternal Kazakhstan again. I would also like to congratulate you on the good results of the Summit. This is another demonstration of the role that Kazakhstan plays in the international arena and the high authority of your country.

There will also be another Summit tomorrow. So I understand how busy your schedule is, and the issues related to the preparation of these important events, of course, take a lot of time. So I am glad to have the opportunity to meet.

First of all, I would like to thank you for your careful attitude to the memory of Heydar Aliyev. We have talked about this. I am grateful for the decisions that have been made.

I also have warm memories of your official visit to Azerbaijan and our meeting, negotiations, as well as a very thorough exchange of views both on the bilateral agenda and on regional issues. Since your visit, I think, there are already good achievements and results - we will talk about this shortly - both in the transport sector and in other areas. Issues related to the development of the Middle Corridor are the call of the times. It is good that both Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan were prepared for this, because a very modern transport infrastructure has been created in our countries, which already makes it possible to transport large volumes of cargo. But in the future, while coordinating our infrastructure plans, I think we can synchronize further work to expand the capacity of the Trans-Caspian route, which will be in the interests of both our countries and peoples, long-term interests, in the interests of countries that are in our neighborhood. So this topic will have a very serious continuation.

On all other issues, as you noted, our countries are allies and strategic partners. This alliance is based on common roots and common interests. Once again, I would like to congratulate you on the successful holding of the Summit, and thank you for your hospitality.

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The sides discussed the issues of cooperation in the fields of energy, transport and logistics. They also exchanged views on the continuation of the Azerbaijan-Turkiye-Kazakhstan meetings in a trilateral format.