Ilham Aliyev and President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev had a meeting

President Ilham Aliyev met with President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev who arrived on a visit to Baku to attend the Summit of Heads of State of Caspian Countries.

President Ilham Aliyev welcomed President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev.

President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev greeted the President of Kazakhstan:

- Dear Nusultan Abyshevych,

I am delighted to greet you in Azerbaijan. Thank you for accepting our invitation. We have a good reason for our meeting today. We are holding the next Summit of the Heads of State of the Caspian Countries. Taking this opportunity, I am very pleased to meet with you and discuss bilateral relations and regional problems again.

Our relations develop with a very dynamic success and in the positive direction. The two fraternal countries keep active mutual ties in international organizations and in a regional format. Economic relations between our regions continue to develop and in general, we have a huge industrial potential. That is why, of course, there is a need to review issues on academic agenda, to see what should be added and which areas should be filled in with joint projects.

The potential is indeed huge and the most important is that here, in Azerbaijan, we have a strong desire to develop very actively our bilateral relations in the spirit of friendship, good neighborhood and brotherhood that have always connected our peoples. We are witnessing very active and dynamic development of all integration processes in a period when our countries are developing as independent states. That is why I want to greet you again. Welcome! You are our dear guest. I hope that your stay in Azerbaijan, though short-term, will be beneficial and pleasant.

President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev expressed his gratitude:

- Thank you Ilham Heydarovych, I am always pleased to be in Baku, Azerbaijan. Unfortunately, time is always short and we do not get to travel across the country as you do. Our relations have intensified following my last year’s visit. I have noticed that commodity turnover has increased significantly. This year Kazakhstan has sent you approximately 1 million ton of wheat. This is a lot more than previous years. In this difficult agricultural year, you needed this much of wheat. There is no divergence of opinion on any other issues or agreements. The only thing we need to do is to stimulate mutual economic relations and enhance trade and cultural ties between our countries. Agreement of heads of state of Caspian states on this meeting, the agenda of the summit, the documents that have been prepared – all of these, in the aftermath of Istanbul summit, manifest that this summit will be a great success. Although we are not solving global issues, still, our positions over the Caspian Sea has been similar since our meeting in Ashgabat and Tehran. The documents we will adopt today – a joint declaration and a security agreement – provide evidence of a strong improvement. I believe the Azerbaijani side has done a great deal for this to happen.

We are waiting for the events of the OSCE Summit on 1-2 December. We will be looking forward to you there. This will be the first grand event in our young capital. In general, we all are working intensively and becoming excited on these issues at the moment. We pretty much know about the positions on the Caspian. General discussions over this issue, I believe, will demonstrate again that a common convention on the Caspian should be prepared, positions should be drawn nearer, and a consensus should be achieved in the nearest future.