Israel-Azerbaijan establishment congress expected to be held

Israeli MP, former Baku resident, Yosef Shagal told the APA that 300 representatives and about 100 guests will attend the congress.

Shagal said they want Azerbaijani government representatives and art figures to participate in the event and stressed that Azerbaijani art figures rarely visit Israel.

Commenting on aims and duties of the association the MP mentioned that over 100,000 people moved from Azerbaijan to Israel and they tried to form friendship society several times.

"A group of people from different cities tried to unite. We are interested in establishing monolith society that will unite Azerbaijani community. Though there are diplomatic relations between the two countries, Azerbaijan has no embassy in Israel, therefore we face social, economic and technical problems. People do not want to lose contact with their motherland. The new body will partially fulfill this function unless Azerbaijani embassy opens in Israel," he said.

Shagal said there is not enough information about Azerbaijan in Israel and there exists serious problems in the sphere of cultural and information exchange. There is no newspaper about Azerbaijan or mutual relations; therefore Israel very often gets distorted information about Azerbaijan.

"The people moved from Azerbaijan have children and grandchildren. We do not want to lose contact with Azerbaijan. On the contrary we want to strengthen our relations," he said.

Shagal noted that he visited Azerbaijan three times within the last ten months with regard to the establishment of the association. He added that Azerbaijan supports this initiative.

"It would be difficult to implement this project without Azerbaijan's participation. I think that establishing of World Association of Azerbaijani Diaspora is expedient. It will be a strong means from the aspect of influencing on world public opinion and defense of Azerbaijan's political and economic interests," he said.

The parliamentarian said that a number ethnic Azerbaijanis live in Israel and stressed the importance of forming the Azerbaijani language courses to preserve their culture.