Speaker of the Milli Majlis Sahiba Gafarova, currently on a working visit to Uzbekistan’s capital of Toshkent, has had a meeting on 4 April with Secretary General of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) Martin Chungong.

Axar.az reports that at their meeting, they reviewed issues of the co-operation between the Milli Majlis of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Inter-Parliamentary Union. It was said that the Inter-Parliamentary Union is an effective platform for international co-operation.

It was further said that the Milli Majlis, which co-operates with international parliamentary organisations bilaterally as well as in multilateral formats, attaches great importance to broadening its ties with the Inter-Parliamentary Union. The successful joint implementation of several events gives rise to opportunities to deepen the partnership further.

Also, the active and high-level involvement of Azerbaijan with the IPU was praised as the conversation went on. They voiced the shared satisfaction with the fact that Members of the Milli Majlis are present in the governing bodies of the Organisation.

Next, there was an exchange of views upon the current regional situation and the normalisation process between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

Speaker of the Milli Majlis Sahiba Gafarova mentioned the completion of the talks about the text of the peace treaty before saying that the next step would be Armenia amending its Constitution to strike from it the stipulation that contains territorial claims to Azerbaijan.

Besides, the Minsk Group, which effectively lost its relevance with Azerbaijan’s having liberated its territories, ought to be disbanded.

As Speaker Sahiba Gafarova emphasised, Armenia should accept these two legitimate conditions of Azerbaijan providing Armenia is truly keen on signing the peace treaty.

The conversation then broached issues related to the collaboration between the Inter-Parliamentary Union and the Parliamentary Network of the Non-Aligned Movement. Martin Chungong lauded the work done by the Network and underscored the importance of the collaboration.

Opinions were offered about the role of parliamentary diplomacy in the system of international relations and about its contribution to solving a range of problems; other matters of shared concern were talked over as well.