Baku, Azerbaijan, May 4
By Seymur Aliyev - Trend:
During the early days of Azerbaijan's independence in the 1990's, internal tensions, civil war, Armenian aggression against Azerbaijan, economic difficulties were the country's biggest challenges, the country's President Ilham Aliyev said at the 48th annual meeting of the Board of Governors of the Asian Development Bank in Baku May 4.
The president went on to remind that after the fall of the Russian Empire, in the beginning of the 20th century, Azerbaijan became independent for two years, and the first democratic republic in the Muslim World was created in the country in 1918.
He further said that following an invasion, Azerbaijan lost its independence for the next 70 years and only in 1991, the country restored it, after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
"Those were the times of big expectations, because we had to build the country, strong economy," said the president.
He added that at the time Azerbaijan's economy was not only in stagnation, but in recession and the prospects for economic and political development were not very clear.
Ilham Aliyev said Azerbaijan started political and economic reforms in the mid-90's, to overcome difficulties and to develop a modern, democratic country with good prospects for the future.
At the same time, the president said two important issues had to be addressed - state building and transformation of political and economic system.
"I think than in less than 20 years, we've made substantial progress," he said. "Azerbaijan is strongly committed to its democratic development."
"We realize that without political transformation, without modern system of governance, we will not be able to achieve success," he said. "So, political and economic reforms were implemented in parallel."
Ilham Aliyev also said that at the time Azerbaijan started a policy of attracting foreign investments, as the country didn't have financial resources.