Azerbaijani and Congolese presidents make press statements [PHOTOS/VIDEO]

President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and President of the Republic of the Congo Denis Sassou Nguesso have made press statements, Azernews reports.

The President of Azerbaijan made the statement first.

Statement by President Ilham Aliyev

- Dear Mr. President.

Dear guests, ladies and gentlemen.

First of all, Mr. President, I sincerely welcome you to Azerbaijan once again – you are welcome. Your visit is historic. The President of the Republic of the Congo is paying an official visit to Azerbaijan for the first time. It is already possible to say that the visit will have very good results.

We have just signed the Declaration on Cooperation. This is a very important and significant document, which will determine the prospects for our cooperation. I am sure that strong friendly relations will be established between the Congo and Azerbaijan.

Many important issues were discussed, and consensus was expressed both during the one-on-one meeting and at the meeting with the participation of delegations. No one has any doubts that our political relations will continue to develop successfully and the Declaration on Cooperation signed today once again confirms this.

We will continue our bilateral activities based on mutual support within the framework of international organizations, especially the UN and the Non-Aligned Movement. Azerbaijan, which successfully chaired the Non-Aligned Movement for four years until January this year, has always felt the support of the Congo. The Congo has always supported our initiatives and, as a result, the institutional development of the Non-Aligned Movement was enabled during our presidency. The Parliamentary Network, the Youth and Women platforms were created during our presidency. Today, the Non-Aligned Movement is a stronger organization than it was before. I think it is in the interest of all of us to increase the role this organization plays on a global scale and in the processes going on in the world. The Non-Aligned Movement is the second largest organization to the UN, with a total of 121 members. We have had a broad exchange of views on the future development of this institution and this movement.

I must also state that during Azerbaijan’s chairmanship of the Non-Aligned Movement, the issues of struggle against neo-colonialism were among our top priorities, and it remains the case today. This area is of particular importance among our foreign policy objectives. Some time ago, the Baku Initiative Group was established in Azerbaijan. It is an international institution. The main goal of this institution is to fight against the new manifestations of colonialism, support the peoples suffering from colonialism today, and ensure that those peoples achieve freedom on legal grounds. Today, the Baku Initiative Group is an organization that enjoys great respect worldwide, and I would like to reiterate that the results of this organization are evident.

Of course, we have had a broad exchange of views on cooperation in the economic field as well today. Specific tasks have been assigned to members of our delegations. Azerbaijan intends to participate in many investment projects in the Congo, primarily in the field of agriculture. There are great prospects for cooperation in renewable energy, energy, mining, and other fields. A discussion was held today, relevant instructions were given, and I am sure that our representatives will be in close contact with each other over the coming months.

I must also state that on the eve of the official visit, in order to prepare it well and achieve good results, the visits of delegations from the Congo to Azerbaijan and from Azerbaijan to the Congo were also organized. Those visits also demonstrated that there is a very good basis for our strategic cooperation.

Another issue was also discussed today. Mr. President recalled that during the Soviet period, students from the Congo studied in higher schools in Azerbaijan. We want to restore this tradition, and relevant instructions have been issued.

In a nutshell, this is a historic visit, and not just because it is the first visit. I think that from the point of view of content and essence, this visit can be described as historic. A new page is opening in the relations between our countries. We have shown our political will, and I am sure that we will achieve the implementation of all the agreements reached with joint efforts.

Today, I invited Mr. President to participate in COP29, and members of our delegations were also instructed to establish extensive cooperation on this issue. As the president of COP29, Azerbaijan is diligently preparing for this event, and I think that it may be appropriate to cooperate with the Congo in bilateral and multilateral formats.

Once again, dear Mr. President, welcome to Azerbaijan. I wish you good health and your people everlasting prosperity and well-being. Thank you.

x x x

Then, the President of the Republic of the Congo made the statement.

Statement by President Denis Sassou Nguesso

- Mr. President.

Dear friends, dear representatives of the media.

Mr. President spoke about historic moments a little while ago, and this is true. We are living through historic moments in relations between Azerbaijan and the Congo. I would like to sincerely thank the President of Azerbaijan for inviting us and creating the conditions to make this official visit a reality. This visit has given us the opportunity to see the beauty of this country, its economic development and the beauty of Baku. Mr. President, I would like to thank you for this invitation.

The President gave us the opportunity to open this wonderful page of cooperation between the Congo and Azerbaijan in all fields. I believe that the President has very well explained a number of aspects of the talks we had a little while ago. I would like to add that we particularly welcome the President's leadership during the chairmanship of the Non-Aligned Movement. We also welcome the role that Azerbaijan will soon play in another challenging area, climate change, as Azerbaijan will host COP29. We welcome the already established relations between our countries and applaud Azerbaijan’s preparations for COP29. We have invited Azerbaijani officials to stand by our country in the fight against climate change. We have informed the President about the goals we pursued at the summit of the world's three largest tropical forest basins – Amazon, the Borneo-Mekong Basin in Southeast Asia and the Congo Basin, which we organized in Brazzaville, the Congo. This summit was held last October, and we can only inform the President about the success of this summit. We can only ask him to consider the results of the summit, because this year Azerbaijan will be hosting COP29.

We also reported on the Africa and Global Decade of Afforestation event to be held in Brazzaville on July 2-3 this year. This is an initiative put forward by Congo during COP in Sharm el-Sheikh. We came up with the idea of Africa and the Global Decade of Afforestation. The African Union, the UN and Congo will organize a conference to make this idea concrete and realize this project. We invited the Azerbaijani officials involved in the organization of COP29 to join us in July to implement this idea and then adopt it at the next session of the UN General Assembly in New York.

Mr. President has also touched upon other issues of cooperation. It was noted that the two countries had significant potential in the fields of hydrocarbons, agriculture, mining, information, and renewable energy. We undertook to develop this cooperation between our countries in all the mentioned sectors. The President also said that we had instructed our representatives to work together to finalize these projects. We are very pleased with the results of our negotiations. We are very happy with the warm and friendly reception shown to us here.

We believe and think that here we have taken a very good step in the direction of cooperation between our countries, and we will definitely succeed. Therefore, I have asked Mr. President to honor us by making a friendly visit to the Congo. I will send him an invitation and we will be honored to welcome Mr. President to our country. This will be another historic event. The visit of the President to our country will be the next step in our productive cooperation.

I express my gratitude to Mr. President for his positive response to all our requests. I would like to announce that we will fight together at the international level – within the UN, within the framework of the Non-Aligned Movement or in other areas. Because during our conversation, we saw that our ideas overlapped at a high level. The Declaration signed by Mr. President and myself is an important milestone. In my opinion, this will guide the activities between our countries in all areas in the coming months and years.

In the end, I would like to thank Mr. President for this reception and for the success of our meetings.