Azerbaijani, Ukrainian presidents hold expanded meeting [UPDATE]

President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, who is on a working visit to Ukraine, and President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy have held a meeting in an expanded format, Azertag reported on January 14.

Expressing his gratitude to President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy said:

- Thank you!

I apologize for being late. We had a wonderful and very meaningful conversation with the President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Heydar oglu Aliyev. I am very happy to see him and his team, especially now, in Ukraine, despite COVID. COVID is a very major threat to our countries. However, we understand that we must fight COVID and meet to develop good relations between our countries in the future.

Thank you for supporting Ukraine, our sovereignty and the joint projects between our countries. I am confident that these projects will develop our relations in the future.

Today we went over several issues: energy, infrastructure, transport, military-technical cooperation and many others. I think that the issue of agro-industrial complex is the most important issue, because today food security is no less important than security in medicine or energy security and independence, which are a priority in the world. In my opinion, we will definitely sign important documents as the beginning of these joint projects, and will continue to complete these projects at the ministerial level.

I would like to thank the President of Azerbaijan once again for finding time to visit Ukraine at such a difficult moment. This is not the first visit and I think that it is not the last one.

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President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev said:

- Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you for inviting me to Ukraine. I am glad to visit your beautiful country again. As you mentioned, our one-on-one meeting today was very productive. Ukraine and Azerbaijan have been successfully cooperating with each other for many years, and we also defend each other's interests on international platforms. Mutual support and protection of each other's territorial integrity is evidence of the high level of our cooperation. Today, along with political dialogue, we have a very broad economic agenda. We have discussed this agenda in detail, item by item, and as you mentioned, there are very good prospects.

I am delighted that there is already a revival in the economic sphere, although the pandemic is still going on. But if we look at the growth of our turnover, we can see that there are positive trends. The issues and projects we are discussing today will, I am sure, further deepen our economic cooperation. Traditionally, we have cooperation in the energy sector, the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan, SOCAR has been operating in Ukraine for many years and wants to expand its activities. The transport, agriculture and tourism sectors also have great prospects. The key thing is that the intergovernmental commission will continue to actively analyze all these issues for specific decisions to be prepared. I appreciate the work of the commission, and at the same time, contacts between various government agencies have recently become more extensive. Both reciprocal visits and telephone contacts have served to resolve many issues.

The mutually beneficial relations between Ukraine and Azerbaijan have been going on for many years. I am confident that after this visit we will see the deepening of our cooperation in all areas. Thank you again for the invitation and for your hospitality.

XXX

The sides discussed the issues related to cooperation in economic sphere, including in agriculture, transport, energy and food security.