13:20

On October 8, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.

Axar.az reports that, greeting the President of Azerbaijan, President Vladimir Putin said:

"Dear Ilham Heydar oglu,

Dear friends, colleagues,

We are very pleased to welcome all of you to Moscow. As agreed during my visit to Baku, we are having this meeting today.

We just spoke face-to-face with the President, and we touched upon issues regarding the current status of our relations during our informal contact last night.

I would like to emphasize that our relations are developing positively, as we mentioned during my visit to Azerbaijan: trade turnover exceeds four times—4.3 billion dollars. Our direct investments in the Azerbaijani economy are more than four billion dollars. There are many good and interesting projects in both the energy sector and infrastructure development. All of them are promising, real, and relevant, both bilaterally and multilaterally.

We are very pleased that within the framework of the meeting of CIS leaders, we have the opportunity today to exchange information about current affairs and possibly make any adjustments to move forward, which is evident.

We are very glad to see you. Welcome."

President Ilham Aliyev said:

"Dear Vladimir Vladimirovich, thank you for the opportunity to meet today, and also for yesterday's lunch. By the way, I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate you on your birthday.

The dynamics of our bilateral relations have become quite noticeable since your state visit. Following the decisions made in Baku in August, there have already been numerous contacts at the level of various structures and among government members.

As you noted, today presents a good opportunity to review those matters, as our agenda is quite broad, and these projects, especially those planned in Baku in August, certainly require our ongoing attention and oversight. Thus, today is a good opportunity to look at the agenda and determine specific steps for the implementation of the agreements reached between our two countries.

Thank you once again for the meeting."

President Vladimir Putin: "Dear Ilham Heydar oglu, we look forward to seeing you in Kazan on October 23-24 for the BRICS Plus-Outreach events. I am sure that useful meetings will take place there, and it will be possible to work with all the leaders of the participant countries of this organization. Of course, we invite many countries that are trying to cooperate with BRICS. Already, 25 of our colleagues have confirmed their participation. Therefore, working on such platforms is always convenient. I mean that it is possible to discuss a whole range of issues that are of interest to the participants of this event. I believe it will be both beneficial and interesting. We are looking forward to seeing you in Kazan."

President Ilham Aliyev: "Vladimir Vladimirovich, thank you. Azerbaijan is indeed among those 25 countries that have confirmed their participation, as Sergey Viktorovich mentioned. I gladly accept your invitation and look forward to our new meeting. Thank you."