Azernews.Az

By Amina Nazarli

The Azerbaijan Police Academy held a solemn ceremony dedicated to a professional holiday honoring police officers on July 2.

Interior Minister Ramil Usubov and Fuad Alasgarov, the Head of the Azerbaijani Presidential Administration’s Department for Work with Law Enforcement Agencies attended the meeting.

Addressing the event, Usubov said that on average 233 crimes were committed for every 100,000 people in Azerbaijan throughout the past 12 years. This figure is significantly lower than in other countries.

During this period about 88 percent of crimes were solved, more than 4,000 criminal groups were busted, while 41,000 suspects were arrested and some 13,000 firearms were seized.

Usubov also touched upon 1st European Games held in Baku between June 12 and 28. He informed the audience that more than 25,000 Interior Ministry’s staff and military personal, ensuring security during the Games adequately coped with the task, showing true patriotism and professionalism.

The minister went on to say that due to the political will, determination and hard work of President Ilham Aliyev, as well as high organizational skills and great services of the Chairman of the Baku 2015 Organizing Committee and First Lady Mehriban Aliyeva, the country could cope with the difficult task of preparing for the Games for 27 months.

He said despite the lack of experience in holding such major events, Baku-2015 met the highest sporting standards. The state agencies and the civil society of Azerbaijan adequately coped with this historic responsibility.

Moreover, he added that Azerbaijan has shown good results at the Games, finishing second in the medal standings among the 50 European countries.

“Hosting such an important event, Azerbaijan once again proved that it is an open country, demonstrating the triumph of peace, friendship, unity, as well as unity of the President and the people,” Usubov said.

The minister also appreciated the role of the media in the fight against crime and eliminating lawlessness in Azerbaijan “We achieve good results, when the media cooperate with us,” he said.

Fuad Alasgarov, for his part, congratulated the Azerbaijani police on behalf of President Ilham Aliyev.

He said that over the past years, the police have grown into the one of the main pillars of Azerbaijani statehood.

Throughout 2004-2015, President Aliyev signed nine executive orders. From 2003, hundreds of legislation on the regulation and improvement of activities conducted by the Interior Ministry have been inked, while hundreds of police officers have been presented with state awards.

He noted that the government carried out a great deal of work to improve the professionalism of the Interior Ministry. Much has also been done on the development of young personnel to be faithful to the principles of statehood and the law.

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Amina Nazarli is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @amina_nazarli

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