President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has been pronounced the Person of the Year at a forum of Turkish-speaking diasporas in Toronto which also saw participation of representatives of Georgian, Latvian, Lithuanian and Estonian communities, AzerTaj state news agency reported.
The Azerbaijani leader was honored for his "tremendous contribution to strengthening the global peace", according to spokesman of the International Heydar Aliyev Center in Canada, Malik Abbas.
In a congratulatory statement to the President, the forum`s participants praised his "leadership in the multi-million Turkish world and your efforts to establish peace on the global scale and stabilize political situation in the Southern Caucasian region and beyond its borders".
The statement also hailed the President`s contribution to preserving "beautiful traditions of Azerbaijan`s national leader Heydar Aliyev aimed at bringing the world cultures closer to one another..."