Meeting of Azerbaijan-Latvia intergovernmental commission expected

"Definite improvement has been observed in Latvia and Azerbaijan relations within last year. The presidents' meetings have been realized, Latvia Embassy in Baku and Azerbaijan Embassy in Riga were established," Azerbaijan Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador to Latvia Tofig Zulfugarov told the APA.

The legal normative basis of the relations between the two countries consists of more than 20 documents including agreements and declarations.

"The speaker of Milli Majlis Ogtay Asadov invited the new chief of Latvian Seym to Azerbaijan. The visit is expected to happen next year. Azerbaijan Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov and the chief of Court of Constitution Ferhad Abdullayev are expected to visit Latvia soon. Azerbaijan and Latvia were the in the same country and that is why relationship arose between the two countries. Later Latvia was the member of NATO and EU and Azerbaijan chose the way of integration to European structures. Besides bilateral relations, there is great potential in the development of the relations within European structures," he said.

Tofig Zulfigarov reminded that Latvia offered to help Azerbaijan in integration to NATO.

"In the frame of this plan some programs can be realized through NATO structures. The main attention will be drawn to the realization of the projects in the frame of NATO partnership for peace. The ambassador said that the first meeting of Azerbaijan- Latvia intergovernmental commission will realized in early next year.

"The point preventing the trade turnover between the two countries will be discussed in the meeting. The second issue to be discussed in the meeting is mutual investment making. We also heard that Latvia side is interested in Azerbaijan Mortgage sector. The volume of trade turnover of the both countries has been decreased after Latvia was the member of EU. I consider that direct flight will cause the increase of the trade turnover between two countries considerably," he said.

The ambassador said that some Latvia tourism companies are in interested in this sector in Azerbaijan.

"Some steps have been made in exchange of experience on health and education of higher educational institutions. Besides, there are perspectives of agriculture relations. Azerbaijan is interested in the import of chemical products, and they are interested in import of wine products. Saying that the number of Azerbaijanis in Latvia is 1795, the ambassador also noted that there Azerbaijanis working on official institutions.

"Some our Diaspora organizations function in Latvia. Unfortunately, some our organizations do not have relations with each others. There are some structures that our Diasporas function together with Armenian Diasporas, we are against it. Because of divergences of ideas in Diaspora the Azerbaijani school functioning on Sundays closed. Now we try to establish new clubs or schools for Azerbaijanis growing up in Latvia to get enough information about Azerbaijani culture and traditions, to learn Azerbaijani language. It is possible to open culinary courses for girls, Azerbaijan language courses and culture courses in Latvia," the ambassador said.