Details added (first version posted on 10:43)
Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 17
Trend:
President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev received a group of participants of the 5th News Agencies World Congress on Nov. 17.
“We met yesterday. As I mentioned yesterday in my remarks, it is a big honor for us to host this important global event,” said Ilham Aliyev.
It is very important that representatives of so many leading news agencies of the world are in Baku, he noted.
“It is a good opportunity for us to present our country. As I said yesterday, Azerbaijan is young as an independent country, but it is a country with rich history, traditions, culture,” said the president. “So I hope you will have a chance to see around, to visit some historical places of Azerbaijan and to know more about the country, because still we need to do more, to work hard to present ourselves. Twenty-five years is not enough time for that.”
“Of course, we organize different events around the world, cultural events, events related to presentation of our economic potential, but the best presentation is when we host our guests here,” said President Aliyev. “Especially the guests, who work daily to inform the world community about what is happening in the world.”
“Therefore, from this point of view, I think this Congress in Baku is of great importance for us,” added the president.
Clive Marshal, president of the News Agencies World Council, CEO of Press Association, also addressed the meeting.
“Thank you very much, Mr. President. Represented at this round table today we have news agencies from every corner of the world, and we selected a number of them to ask you questions,” said Marshal. “I think I speak on behalf of everybody when I say that we were impressed with your speech yesterday. We were particularly impressed with your command of English. It is fantastic.”
“Many of us have come to your country on a number of occasions over the last three years as we prepared for this event,” he noted. “And it has been a privilege to see both the developments in Baku, and some of us also had a chance to visit some of the small villages. May be my pronunciation will be wrong, one village was called Khinalig, where we were welcomed by villagers, and they served us breakfast. This gave us a different insight into your country.”
Abdullah bin Fahad Al-Hussein, president of the News Agencies World Congress and Saudi Press Agency (SPA), in turn, thanked President Aliyev for organizing this important event.
Azerbaijan and Saudi Arabia enjoy great relations, noted Al-Hussein.
“We have to strengthen the bilateral relations between our friendly countries,” he added.