Announcing Baku the capital of Islamic culture in 2009 is a high estimation of the rich history and culture of Azerbaijan, located at the junction of different civilizations, says the message by the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev to the participants of the 6th Conference of Culture Ministers of Islamic countries, AzerTAj state news agency reported.
"Holding this year's events made a worthy contribution to the development of cultural relations within the Organization of Islamic Conference, once again focused attention on the role of Azerbaijan in the formation of Islamic culture. We appreciate the great historic achievement as the existing tolerance in the country, and continuing this tradition, attach importance to the establishment of constructive dialogue between religions and cultures," the message says.
Head of State expressed confidence that the Baku conference will be an important contribution to the effective cooperation, based on the common spiritual and cultural values of different civilizations.
Azerbaijan carries out various international projects for the protection of tangible and intangible heritage and its propaganda, the message says. However, as a result of Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict which has been continuing over 20 years, Armenian armed forces destroyed all the monuments of Islamic culture in the occupied territories of Azerbaijan, including religious temples, mosques, the message says.
According to the President, the support of the OIC member states to Azerbaijan, who faced with this occupation, has always been appreciated in Azerbaijan.
"I believe that the conference will discuss current issues of culture of the Islamic world, identify new ways of developing cultural cooperation between the countries and peoples," the message by the President of Azerbaijan says.