EDITOR's NOTE: Details added after fourth paragraph
Azerbaijan, Baku, September 7 / Trend E.Ostapenko/
Speaker of the Parliament of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, former head of the Parliamentary Assembly of Council of Europe Rene Van der Linden will pay an official visit to Baku September 7-9, the parliament's press service told Trend.
"The main aim of the visit is to strengthen the ties between our peoples and parliaments," Senior Communnication Adviser at Dutch Parliament Jurjen Bügel said.
According to the preliminary program of the visit, on Wednesday morning he will visit the Honorary Cemetery in Baku and place a wreath at the monument to former Azerbaijani President Heydar Aliyev.
The meeting of Van der Linden with Azerbaijani Parliament chairman Ogtay Asadov is also planned.
There are no structural bilateral inter-parliamentary activities between the Netherlands and Azerbaijan, but a common interest has grown in the last few years.
In July a group of Dutch Parliamentarians visited Baku in the spirit of sharing best practices and learning about each others culture, politics and other relevant topics.
Van der Linden himself payed a visit to Azerbaijan earlier in a position of PACE President. He was in the office in the period from 2005 to 2008.
In this highly respected position Mr Van der Linden has been very much involved in all aspects of multilateral relations between states on the continent of Europa and accross. He is still an influential person connecting people and networks on a pan-European scale, beyond his formal position as the President of the Senate of the Netherlands.
67-year-old Van der Linden has been President of the Senate since October 2009 and a member of the Christian Democrat (CDA) parliamentary party in the Senate since 1999. He was previously State Secretary for Foreign Affairs, member of the House of Representatives, chairperson of an EU Committee.