Ilham Aliyev and President of Iran Hassan Rouhani held an expanded meeting

After the official welcoming ceremony President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and President of the Islamic Republic of Iran Hassan Rouhani have held an expanded meeting with participation of delegations.

The heads of states delivered speeches at the meeting.

Speech of President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev:

- Dear Mr. President,

Dear guests,

I sincerely greet you in Azerbaijan. Welcome to Azerbaijan. Mr. President, I was informed that today is your birthday. I heartily congratulate you on the occasion of your birthday and wish you good health and further achievements. I am glad that you are with us today in Azerbaijan. This is your first official visit to Azerbaijan as President. I am sure that this visit will be very successful and give a new impetus to our bilateral relations. I recall my official visit to Iran with pleasure. I visited your beautiful country in April this year, we held a wide exchange of views, and this dialogue still continues.

I am happy that accompanied by a large delegation you have come to Azerbaijan. Members of the delegations will be in close contact and discuss very important issues.

Our ties have a great history and bright future. Now our relations have entered a new stage. We have a broad agenda. We discuss political, economic, cultural, humanitarian issues. We are bound together by historical ties and common cultural history, and this symbolizes our developing relations.

I am sure that the negotiations and exchange of views to be held today and tomorrow will take Iranian-Azerbaijani relations forward. There are many issues to be discussed. All these matters are being discussed in a very frank manner. Our common intention is to bring our people and countries closer to each other. This is our main goal and we are moving forward toward it.

Once again I wholeheartedly welcome you. I am sure that the visit will yield good results.

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Speech of President of Iran Hassan Rouhani:

Thank you very much, Mr President. I am very happy that together with my delegation we are your guests in friendly, brotherly, neighboring Azerbaijan that we share common values with. We consider this visit as important as the previous ones so that it becomes a step forward in the development and strengthening of our mutual ties. We have met in Davos, Tehran and Astrakhan, and today meet in Baku, hold discussions. It is our fourth meeting. I think we have made steps forward in those four stages. There is no doubt that the relations between our countries will serve to the benefit of the two peoples. We can use the existing opportunities for the expansion of the ties between our countries. All our previous negotiations, meetings of officials and agreements we reached used just a small part of opportunities of the two countries. Apart from this there is a great potential for cooperation in economic, cultural, border issues, usage of the Caspian Sea, as well as political and international matters. At our talks today and tomorrow we will use all opportunities for the expansion of cooperation. We will also use the opportunity to discuss all the issues of common interest. Off course, all these negotiations will have an impact on a further expansion and strengthening of relations in the future.