An official dinner was given in honour of President of the Republic of Belarus Aleksandr Lukashenko on behalf of Ilham Aliyev

An official dinner was given in honour of President of the Republic of Belarus Aleksandr Lukashenko on behalf of Ilham Aliyev.

The heads of state spoke at the dinner.

President of the Azerbaijan Republic Ilham Aliyev said:

- Dear Aleksandr Grigoryevich,

Dear guests, dear friends,

Once again I would like to welcome you in Azerbaijan with all my heart. Your visit is of great importance for the development of our friendly relations. Today and yesterday we talked a lot about it, and I am sure that members of the delegations also actively communicated. And we, I think, totally equally evaluate the dynamics and results of our relations. I remember my first official visit to Belarus in 2006 and then your official visit to Azerbaijan in 2007. Since then, as you pointed out at the press conference, we have met at least once a year, and given our participation in the CIS summits, even more often. By the way, recently I visited Minsk again. I would like, as I told Aleksandr Grigoryevich, to congratulate Belarus once again on the perfect organization of the CIS summit and the good results of the summit.

President Ilham Aliyev stressed that despite some difficulties in the first years of independence, Belarus has been developing successfully. Noting the high level of mutual trust between the two countries, the head of state said:

- We address problems on the basis of the sense of mutual sympathy, mutual support and, of course, mutual interests. It is no accident that our countries have always supported each other in all international organizations and displayed solidarity. I think that it is also an indicator of our mutual relations and respect. Of course, these relationships contribute to the fact that we have already thought about the future today, and we are thinking about it. The dynamics, which our relations have experienced over the last few years, I think, have a special place in the history of bilateral relations between the two countries in general.

Expressing confidence that this visit by President Aleksandr Lukashenko will give good results, President Ilham Aliyev said:

- I rate the results of the visit as very positive – both the documents that were signed, what we agreed upon and what we will carry out for the next meeting. Hopefully next year the co-chairmen of the commission will report new successes to us. And I am sure they will report that the instructions of the Presidents were even carried out ahead of schedule. So this is happening in many positions of our relations.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev noted with satisfaction that the two countries' positions on both bilateral relations and developments taking place in the world coincide.

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President Aleksandr Lukashenko stressed that Azerbaijan's successes in all areas are perceived with satisfaction in the Republic of Belarus. Noting that what he saw in Baku during the visit made a wonderful impression on him, he said:

- Yesterday, we held events in the evening. We saw Baku by night. It epitomizes what you want to do in your own land!

Emphasizing that his country has a great interest in expanding cooperation with Azerbaijan, the President of Belarus said:

- We will certainly develop our cooperation. I really want us to be able to say a short time later that we have doubled our trade turnover and the number of joint projects and have more areas of cooperation.

Assessing President Ilham Aliyev's victory in the elections as a significant event in the life of the Azerbaijani people, the Belarusian head of state said:

- After a certain period of time, people showed unprecedented confidence in you. Today no one has any doubt – I think not only in Azerbaijan, but also in the whole world any normal person would say: yes, the Azerbaijani people have their own energetic leader.