Azad Rahimov: "Humanitarian cooperation between Moscow and Baku covers all areas"

The 7th Forum of Azerbaijani Youth Organization of Russia "AYOR Generation: patriotism, creativity, success" has opened on December 6 in Moscow at Crocus City Hall. The forum was attended by the Azerbaijani Minister of Youth and Sports Azad Rahimov. On the sidelines of the event, Vestnik Kavkaza talked with the minister about the current state of the Russian-Azerbaijani relations.

- Azad muallim, how do you assess the current cooperation between Russia and Azerbaijan in the humanitarian sphere?

- Our cooperation covers all the possible vectors in the humanitarian sphere. This also applies to the culture, multiculturalism and ecology. Youth and humanitarian interaction between young people is the most important theme for us today. Of course, we, as the Ministry of Youth and Sports, attach great importance to the work in this direction. We are closely cooperating with the Russian National Council of Youth and Children's Unions and with all the large Russian youth organizations within the CIS and directly. Every year we host the Azerbaijani-Russian Youth Forum. This year it was held in Kazan, in the next year it  will be held in Baku. I believe that all of this is a really important work, which we do together.

- What is the AYOR role in the Russian-Azerbaijani humanitarian relations?

- This organization is very important for us, because, in fact, it is the engine of the humanitarian youth cooperation between Russia and Azerbaijan. Today, the organisation's report on the work done during the year was made public, and if you look at everything that AYOR has done for seven years, we can say without false modesty that they have done a great job. Today, AYOR is a fully-established organization, which is known in Russia, which unites the youth in practice and not just in words. We see inspired faces of our young people, look at what they are doing, we are very pleased that the organization carries out the task of rapprochement between the two brotherly countries and their youth on behalf of the future of our neighborly relations.

- Is there any humanitarian cooperation at the regional level?

- Azerbaijan borders on the Russian republic of Dagestan, we have entered into cooperation agreements with the border regions - the Khachmaz, Guba and Qusar regions of Azerbaijan and, respectively, the Magaramkentsky District of Dagestan. Good friendly relations are developing between us, the Days of Azerbaijani culture are held in Dagestan and the Days of Dagestani culture are held in Azerbaijan. I think that the cross-border cooperation is also very important for strengthening contacts between our countries.

- The chairwoman of AYOR, Vice-President of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation, Leyla Aliyeva, speaking at the opening of the forum, mentioned he union activists, which participated in the 'Memory Watch' and 'Immortal Regiment' actions. Does Azerbaijan plan to participate in these actions in the next year?

- We are working on it. With the support of the ministry, our guys participated in the search for the graves of soldiers, lost during the Second World War, together with Russian friends and colleagues. This work is carried out by the Ministry of Youth and Sports together with the Ministry of Education and Science of Russia, as well as in cooperation with NGOs, which specialize in this area. We will continue to do it further.