Today official events have started in Baku in the framework of the visit by representatives of the Russian media to Azerbaijan on the eve of the parliamentary elections on November 1st.
The first meetings with the Russian journalists were held with the chairman of the Milli Majlis, Ogtay Asadov, and the chairman of the parliamentary committee on regional issues, the chairman of the Committee on Regional Affairs of the Milli Majlis of Azerbaijan, Arif Ragimzade.
"Azerbaijan is actively developing cooperation with Russia at both the high and regional levels," the correspondent of Vestnik Kavkaza cited Ogtay Asadov as saying. As an example, he mentioned the visit of the head of Dagestan, Ramazan Abdulatipov, to Baku on 22 October.
"Ramazan Abdulatipov met with President Ilham Aliyev. In general, the republic has established trade relations with 70 regions of Russia and has signed documents on bilateral cooperation with 22 subjects of the Russian Federation," he reminded.
Ogtay Asadov drew attention to the contribution of the Russian-Azerbaijani inter-parliamentary commission to the development of bilateral relations. "Its work has played a very important role in the issue of the delimitation of borders between Russia and Azerbaijan. Russia is the only country among our neighbors with which we have achieved a full understanding of the borders. In addition to the regular exchange of visits between the delegations of the two countries to Azerbaijan and Russia, we maintain very close relations in all international parliamentary organizations. Our parliamentarians support each other, very often their speeches have a single point of view. This is an achievement," the chairman of the Milli Majlis said, answering a question from Vestnik Kavkaza.
In general, according to his estimates, Azerbaijani-Russian relations have reached the level of strategic partnership. "The Slavic University is operating in Azerbaijan and there are more than 300 schools where the pupils are receiving education in Russian. All universities have Russian sectors. Our political and trade relations are at a high level: turnover between the countries amounts to over $4 billion, more than 500 Russian companies are operating in Azerbaijan, 300 of them have Russian capital," Ogtay Asadov expressed hope that the Russian media will cover the parliamentary elections objectively and demonstrate to the world that Azerbaijan holds democratic and transparent elections.
