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Elnur Enveroglu

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The level of participants, the intellectual potential of Baku Global Forum is in line with the leading international conferences. This is a reflection of very thoughtful and productive activity of the co-chairs and the whole Board of the Nizami Ganjavi International Center, said President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev as he addressed the opening ceremony of the 10th Global Baku Forum themed “The World of Today: Challenges and Hopes.

President also praised the value given by the NGCI to the great poet of Azerbaijan Nizami Ganjavi who lived in the XII-XIII centuries in Azerbaijan.

“Nizami Ganjavi International Center (NGIC) pays great respect to the creativity of the great Azerbaijani poet Nizami Ganjavi,” said President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev as he addressed the opening ceremony of the 10th Global Baku Forum themed “The World of Today: Challenges and Hopes”.

“Nizami Ganjavi was born, lived, died and was buried in his native city of Ganja, one of the ancient cities of Azerbaijan. And his wisdom and talent symbolizes the wisdom and talent of the people of Azerbaijan,” the head of state added.”

Besides, at the forum ran with some 360 participants across 61 countries, including acting and former presidents, and prime ministers the president of Azerbaijan outlined the most important issues in the agenda as well as touching on its successful leadership in NAM.

“So, we can imagine that the level of discussions will be very high. And of course, the most important recommendations about the new approaches to international affairs will be most valuable," the Azerbaijani leader added.

“I was very happy to see one panel on multilateralism, especially taking into account that Azerbaijan this year completes its chairmanship in Non-Aligned Movement, which started in 2019 and was extended by unanimous decision of 120-member states for one more year until the end of 2023. We tried to, if I may use this word, to revitalize the Non-Aligned movement, which had great traditions, but unfortunately during some period of time was a little bit passive. And for that, we organized international events, three summits,” the head of state emphasized.

The head of state also mentioned Azerbaijan’s outstanding role in combating challenges in pandemic and post-pandemic periods and its support to countries.

“We address the issue of post-COVID development. In the meantime, we provided financial humanitarian assistance to more than 80 countries, most of them members of Non-Aligned Movement.

We provided 10 million US dollars direct donations to the World Health Organization to help them to fight the coronavirus,” the head of state noted, saying that this support will be continuous.

“We will continue our efforts even after our chairmanship comes to an end by the end of this year.” “Because, we see that there is a big need for such a Movement in today's world, in today's divided world, when we see maybe the most serious confrontation between the East and West since the end of the Cold War. The Non-Aligned Movement can play and should play an important role in building bridges, in creating new approaches to resolution of conflicts and, of course, the basic principles of Non-Aligned movement - so called Bandung Principles,” the president stressed.

At the 10th Global Baku Forum Azerbaijani President also highlighted Azerbaijan’s efforts in peace building, and the volatility of Armenian policy that affects the normalisation of relations between two countries.

“We were trying hard to resolve the conflict with Armenia by peaceful means. Armenia conducted the policy of ethnic cleansing against Azerbaijanis and expelled them from Karabakh and created sufferings for a million Azerbaijan,” the head of the state noted as well as pointing out atrocities committed by Armenians during 30 years of occupation.

“The representatives of Nizami Ganjavi International Center (NGIC) have seen the destruction in Fuzuli, in Shusha and it's really the sign of barbarism, it is urbicide, culturocide, ecocide. And that was done by our neighbors. People of Azerbaijan have a moral right to demand revenge.

But my message is that we took revenge on the battlefield. We did not commit any war crimes, unlike Armenians. We did not commit genocide, unlike Armenians did to us. And we took revenge on the battlefield. So, now it's time for peace,” the head of state underlined.

“Now it's time for peace,” said the president adding Azerbaijan’s will for maintaining security and stability in the region.

“Therefore, right after the war ended in November 2020, we launched an initiative to start peaceful negotiations and presented the famous five principles, which could be a basis for a peace agreement with Armenia,” said the President at the forum.

In addition, Azerbaijani president stressed the importance of international organisations to strengthen their joint efforts to convince Armenia that they stand in the wrong position.

“We hope that international actors, which try to facilitate will persuade Armenia not to lose this chance. They lost the chance to become an independent country. They become totally dependent, kind of a colony of other country, and now maybe other countries. So, they lost their chance to become really independent and to build their future, because of aggression against us,” the head of state emphasized.

While addressing the opening ceremony of the 10th Global Baku Forum the Azerbaijani president also spoke about Azerbaijan’s tolerance to ethnic minorities, regions and cultures as well as pointing out the future of Karabakh-Armenians.

“Azerbaijan is a multiconfessional, multi-ethnic country. The rights of minorities in Azerbaijan are protected by our Constitution.”

“Azerbaijan is a country with a high-level of religious and ethnic tolerance, where representatives of different ethnic groups, different confessions live in peace and dignity. So, I'm sure that the life of Armenians who live in Karabakh region of Azerbaijan will be much better than it was during the times of occupation,” the head of state added.

Moreover, president Ilham Aliyev expressed that Azerbaijan reckons more on the international law and he is hopeful for its fruitful result in resolving the long-lasting disputes on the territorial issues.

“Every conflict has its own history, has its own dynamics and has its own end but important is that disputes between countries are resolved on the basis of international law, territorial integrity and sovereignty,” said President of Azerbaijan.

“It cannot be changed by force. This is the position of Azerbaijan. And this position applies not only to our case, but to all conflicts in the world. And we publicly articulate this position,” the head of state added.

Furthermore, Azerbaijani president spoke about Azerbaijan’s growing role in oil and gas supply to Europe and beyond.

“Azerbaijan increased substantially its natural gas supply to Europe and total export of natural gas.

If we exported 19 billion cubic meters in 2019, totally. So, this year, it will be more than 24 billion cubic meters and half of that, at least half of that, will go to Europe. And that definitely helped and we will continue to help European consumers to get access to natural gas taking into account the current geopolitical situation,” the head of state noted.

We increased our investments in our gas fields. Since Russian-Ukrainian war started, we got requests from more than 10 European countries with respect to gas supplies or to increase the gas supply and we're working on that.”

In his speech at the opening ceremony of the 10th Global Baku Forum, president Ilham Aliyev mentioned how Azerbaijan turned a reliable partner for Europe in the very difficult moment, especially when demand for energy was at its peak.

“And it's not by chance that European Commission calls Azerbaijan a reliable partner. This is a case we’ve always been reliable partner. We export oil, oil products, natural gas, electricity, petrochemicals to international markets, including European markets,” the head of state noted.

“We already changed the European energy map by building oil pipelines, gas pipelines, and now electric lines, which will deliver green energy.

Last year transits through Azerbaijan grew more than 75%,” said the President, adding that Azerbaijan needs to further its transportation facilities.

“Our modern transportation infrastructure now is needed more than ever before. We really contributed a lot to transportation security,” the head of state emphasized,” presided added.

The 10th Global Baku Forum themed “The World of Today: Challenges and Hopes” was kicked off in Baku on March 9. The forum will continue its sessions until March 11 to discuss how to overcome the world’s most pressing challenges.