From talk of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Heydar Aliyev while ‎receiving the executive secretary of CIS Yuri Yarov - Presidential palace, May ‎‎18, 2000‎

Yuri Yarvov: Heydar Aliyevitch, I have set three tasks for myself while coming here. First - to inform you about the fulfillment of the decisions of the summit held on January 25. Second, I have submitted to Abbas Aydinovitch Abbasov a draft program on the issues proposed for the discussion in the following meeting to be held on July 21. Meetings of the Council of Foreign Ministers and heads of governments will be held prior to that meeting. Third, there are some issues and I would like to receive Your advice and check the correctness of my position in order to be more confident and qualitative preparations for the meeting of the Council of the Heads of States.

But first of all, I would like to thank You once more for giving me an opportunity to meet and report to You. Besides, I want to wish you successes, recently we have congratulated You by a letter.

Your deeds and ideas are always very important for us. I have several times declared that your ideas were very important for us. Last events prove that thanks to you we have begun to come to a consensus more, basically to move towards in the determined directions. I am deeply thankful to you for it.

I want to say something. Every time when I come here, I become astonished to see how your capital develops, and how numerous new buildings are being constructed. They are very noticeable. This confirms the correctness of the way take by you, and we stress it with pleasure.

Heydar Aliyevich, if you don't mind, first of all I would like to talk of all the directions on which we have adopted decisions. There are three kinds of decisions. First, decisions which have ben implemented into life - I will start my speech with them; second, decisions which are due to carried out; third, decisions not realized, I will explain why they have not been fulfilled.

Heydar Aliyev: Yuri Fyodorovich, thank you for your kind words, wishes and attitude. I once more confirm that I am for an active cooperation in the framework of CIS. I gave my consent to the meeting of the heads of states on June 21. I also agree on holding the meetings of the foreign ministers and heads of governments prior to that meeting.

I think that now, after Vladimir Vladmirovitch Putin's election as President of Russia, whom we all, CIS heads of states had supported on January 25, in Moscow, a new stage is beginning in the life of Russia. I think that it creates more favorable conditions for the bilateral cooperation between Russia and Azerbaijan, cooperation in the framework of CIS as well, we have recently talked with Leonid Dratchevskiy, minister on affairs of CIS, about them.

Azerbaijan firmly supports the development of cooperation bilaterally or in the frames of CIS. That is why I will be happy to hear your information. We can share our views. I am glad that you came to Baku especially for this issue. Now, I would like to thank mass media to leave and talk with you comprehensively about everything. 

"Azerbaijan" newspaper, May 19, 2000