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President Ilham Aliyev plays very important consolidating role in Turkic Council - SecGen (EXCLUSIVE)

Politics Materials 11 April 2021 12:30 (UTC +04:00)
President Ilham Aliyev plays very important consolidating role in Turkic Council - SecGen (EXCLUSIVE)

BAKU, Azerbaijan, Apr.11

By Elchin Mehdiyev, Fidan Babayeva - Trend:

Azerbaijan traditionally plays a great role in strengthening cooperation between Turkic speaking countries, Secretary General of the Cooperation Council of the Turkic-Speaking States (Turkic Council) Baghdad Amreyev told Trend in an exclusive interview.

He noted that the Turkic Council was originally established in Azerbaijan's Nakhchivan, and the agreement on the Turkic Council is called the Nakhchivan Agreement.

"From the very first days of the functioning of the Turkic Council, Azerbaijan was in the center of attention. This is natural, since geographically, Azerbaijan is located right in the center of the Turkic world and plays a large connecting role between two large parts of the Turkic world - Central Asia and Anatolia. Also, it is the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev who plays a very important consolidating role for the Council," Amreyev said.

He stressed that the past and current year are the years of Azerbaijan's chairmanship in the Council.

"Azerbaijan has done a great job in this capacity, held a number of ministerial meetings, including the gathering which took place in Baku today [April 10]. Before, many meetings were convened at the ministerial level, but our historic summit was held in October 2019 in Baku. Beginning from the Baku summit, the Turkic world entered a new phase of its development and proximity. Therefore, the Baku summit became a historic, turning point in the development of the Turkic world," Amreyev said.

Amreyev noted that thanks to the Victory in the Second Karabakh War, brotherly Azerbaijan made a huge contribution to the consolidation of the Turkic world.

"The Victory of Azerbaijan was the victory of the entire Turkic world, and it gave a powerful impetus, brought great enthusiasm to our peoples. Justice has triumphed with the victory in Karabakh," the secretary general stressed.

"We have previously met with President Ilham Aliyev and discussed the participation of our companies in the restoration work in the liberated territories. Of course, the restoration work is not so easy, first it is necessary to restore the basic infrastructure and develop projects," said Amreyev.

He noted that the Council plans to hold a large business forum dedicated to the participation of companies from Turkic countries in the restoration work in Karabakh before the end of this month.

"I think that during this meeting, which will be organized by the Turkic Council and the National Confederation of Entrepreneurs of Azerbaijan, we will be able to attract a large number of companies from our countries to the restoration work. Wherever I am, whatever country I visit, I always meet with the business community and urge its representatives to actively participate in these restoration projects. I hope that the business circles of our countries will take an active part in this process. In addition, we, as a Turkic organization, immediately after the liberation of the occupied territories, visited Aghdam and Fuzuli, and I hope we will soon visit Shusha. We will offer all the efforts of our countries to restore the cultural sites of Karabakh, which were completely destroyed [while they were under Armenian occupation]. We will make every effort so that our countries take part in the restoration process," he said.

Amreyev emphasized that some of the member countries have already expressed their readiness to participate in the restoration of the liberated lands. For instance, Turkey and Kazakhstan expressed their readiness to build hospitals, Uzbekistan is ready to build and restore cultural buildings and hospitals there.

With respect to cooperation between Turkic-speaking countries in the fight against coronavirus, Amreyev noted that the Turkic-speaking countries and leaders of the Turkic world were the first to respond to the coronavirus pandemic.

"Exactly a year ago, the heads of state of the Turkic Council member-states held a summit dedicated to the fight against the coronavirus at the initiative of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. It was the first summit ever dedicated to the fight against the pandemic and the first ever summit held via videoconference. The heads of states quickly made a decision to create all the necessary conditions for coordination in the battle against COVID-19 and as a follow-up, a meeting of ministers of health was held and a Coordination Committee, as well as supply and scientific groups were set up. The supply group immediately began supplying the necessary medical equipment to the member-countries," he said.

Amreyev noted that great job was done within the Committee, especially in the first, the most difficult days of the pandemic.

"This is thanks to the prompt response of our leaders," he said.

"The scientific group was actively working to develop treatment protocol and to exchange views on the methods of treatment, correct use of drugs, their production, as well as on the development of a vaccine against the new virus. The scientific team continues to operate very effectively to this day and has helped in many ways to mitigate the dire consequences of the pandemic in member-countries. In this regard, the ministries of health, the medical officials and the scientists of the member-countries have done a great job," he said.

He recalled that the Turkic Council has also held a number of ministerial meetings in connection with the pandemic, both online and offline, with participation of ministers of transport, ministers of economy, ministers of education, that is, areas where the consequences of pandemics are yet to be mitigated.

"We have recently met with the energy ministers to explore the ways how to contribute to the fight against the pandemic. These meetings proved to be very successful. It is thanks to these meetings the Turkic Council's member-states have an operating green corridor between the countries, which allows transporting necessary medicines uninterruptedly. The member-countries continue to cooperate closely. The vaccination against the COVID-19 has also begun in the member-states, which is also an area for close contact between the countries," Amreyev said.

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