Azernews.Az

By Amina Nazarli

Speaker of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey Ismail Kahraman arrived in Azerbaijan on an official visit on December 22.

During the Baku visit, Kahraman has met with Azerbaijan`s Parliament Speaker Ogtay Asadov.

Asadov highlighted the importance of Kahraman’s visit to Azerbaijan, saying such visits are the indicators of high-level ties of both countries.

He said the reciprocal visits served to development of relations between the two countries.

Kahraman, in turn, highlighted steadily developing fraternal Azerbaijani-Turkish relations, noting that inter-parliamentary ties served to further deepening these bonds.

Ismail Kahraman underlined the successfully developing economic cooperation between the two countries.

Currently, Turkey is one of the main trade partners of Azerbaijan, taking second place Azerbaijani importers. The trade turnover between the two states amounted at about $954 million, According to the Azerbaijani State Customs Committee.

The Turkish speaker stressed the importance of strengthening the unity among the Turkish countries.

Kahraman also highlighted deepening trilateral Azerbaijani-Turkish-Georgian cooperation. Earlier, the defense ministers of the regional neighbors came together in Istanbul to look though the development perspectives of the trilateral military ties.

The speaker said Turkey supports Azerbaijan`s just position on Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

He said Turkey supported the settlement of the problem within the rules of international law and territorial integrity of Azerbaijan.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The Azerbaijani-Turkish relations have always been strong due to a common culture and history and the mutual intelligibility of Turkish and Azerbaijani languages.

Turkey was the first country in the world to recognize Azerbaijan's independence in 1991 and has been a staunch supporter of Azerbaijan in its efforts to preserve its territorial integrity and realize the economic potential that arises from its rich natural resources in the Caspian Sea.

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

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