From talk of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Heydar Aliyev while receiving the delegation headed by the commandant on training and doctrine of the Turkish Conventional Armed Forced H.Baha Tuzuner - Presidential Palace, April 5, 2000

Heydar Aliyev: Distinguished General Mr. Tuzuner!

Distinguished generals and guests!

I am greeting you in Azerbaijan. Welcome to our country! I once again note the efficiency of the cooperation on defense issues between Turkey and Azerbaijan.

We always hold the contacts between Turkey and Azerbaijan at a high level and I highly appreciate and consider them to be very important for us in all the spheres. We are very satisfied with that friendly and cooperation contacts established, especially between the ministries of defense of our countries. Naturally, these contacts are mutually advantageous, but they are very important for Azerbaijan. Because Azerbaijan is a newly independent state, it builds its state, institutions and National Army as well.

National Army can not be established within a short time. That is why, we evaluate our works ourselves. But we think that we must work much to make our National Army meet high standards. That is why, I note once more that to profit from the experience of your army, to cooperate with you is very important for us. From this point of view, I approve and appreciate your visit to Azerbaijan, and I suppose that your visit will be very efficient for the development of military cooperation and for giving advice and recommendations for army building activities in Azerbaijan. Thank you.

H.Baha Tuzuner: Thank you distinguished Mr. President. I am very grateful to You for taking your precious time and receiving us. I arrived in Baku as a commandant of training and doctrine in the framework of the existing cooperation agreement between Turkey and Azerbaijan. We are here to develop our contacts in the framework of previous mutual training cooperation, to know each other and eliminate shortcomings reciprocally profiting from our experience.

Modernization and development of the Azerbaijani army is our great wish. We want that the fraternal Azerbaijan to become a strong and prosperous country. We hope that it will really become strong and prosperous in the near future. We held meetings and discussed what we can do in future. We shall continue our work in this direction.

Heydar Aliyev: Thank you. I once again thank you for your aid to us, especially in the sphere of education. Please, give my best regards to my friend, Huseyin Kivrikoglu, the commander of the headquarters of the Turkish Armed Forces. In general, to all my friends in Turkey. I have many friends there, including in the army and among the generals.

Thank you again for the works which you did. 

Translated from "Azerbaijan" newspaper, April 6, 2000.