Volodin: Russian lawmakers’ visit to Baku to boost inter-parliamentary ties

The Russian State Duma's visit to Baku will give impetus to developing bilateral inter-parliamentary relations and also enhance inter-regional cooperation, the lower house’s Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin told Azerbaijan’s AzTV, according to the State Duma website.

"Certainly, there is a development potential in inter-parliamentary relations and we believe that the parliamentary dimension should provide more opportunity to build ties between our countries. We hope that the visit will result in achieving agreements to make it possible to bring our relations to an inter-regional level in the framework of the parliamentary dimension and give impetus to developing ties in general between our nations," the speaker said, noting that this is the first trip to Baku by a delegation of the 7th State Duma.

"We have a huge potential and there is the need to use it: to achieve the decisions which our nations expect," Volodin said. According to Volodin, the parliaments of Russia and Azerbaijan need to do a lot for a legislative support for the decisions by the two heads of state.

He recalled that  Russian President Vladimir Putin and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev meet rather often, discussing "crucial issues" and the issues of developing bilaterial relations. The parliaments’ goal, according to Volodin, is to ensure legislative support for the decisions reached at the level of president. 

Volodin noted with satisfaction the expansion of economic cooperation between the two countries and said that a 30% increase in trade turnover is a very good indicator of this. "The flow of Russian tourists has reached 850,000 and it significantly rose, the growth was 18% compared with the previous years," he stressed.

A delegation of Russia’s lower house of parliament led by Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin arrived on a two-day official visit to Azerbaijan on June 24. The Russian lawmakers met with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. The delegation includes Deputy State Duma Speaker Sergey Neverov, Head of the State Duma’s Committee for the Commonwealth of Independent States’ Affairs and Head of the State Duma’s Energy Committee Pavel Zavalny.