Parliament Speaker meets with Sergey Mironov

Sergey Mironov, Chairman of the Federation Council of Russia, who heads the Council of the CIS Interparliamentary Assembly, and Ogtay Asadov, Chairman of the Milli Majlis of Azerbaijan, signed a corresponding agreement here on Wednesday.

Mironov pointed to the fact that the first branch of the Institute would be created in Baku, which is evidence of "a high prestige of the Azerbaijani parliament in the Interparliamentary Assembly."

He expressed hope that "other capitals of the CIS member countries would follow the example of Baku and would create similar institutes."

"Why should some guests from other countries give us lessons of democracy? Why cannot CIS member countries monitor the development of democracy and human rights by themselves?" Mironov said.

The Russian legislators, who came here as members of the delegation of the Federation Council for an official visit, and members of the Azerbaijani parliament pointed at their meeting to "a dynamic development of relations between the two countries in many spheres."

Ogtay Asadov specially mentioned the "careful handling" of the Russian language and culture in their country and said that Russian was taught in 30 universities and colleges, as well as 460 secondary schools.

Dozens of newspapers and journals in the Russian language are published in Azerbaijan. In his opinion, "this brings our two nations closer together."

He also pointed to "cordial relations and mutual trust between the leaders of the two countries." According to Asadov, "the people of Azerbaijan remember with warm feelings the visits of President Vladimir Putin to Baku." Itar-Tass