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The panel meeting from Baku International Policy and Security Network think tank, hosted by Elkhan Alasgarov, Ph.D., head of the Baku Network expert council, focused on Azerbaijan’s role in resolving global problems.

The participants at the panel were: Hikmet Hajiyev, Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry’s spokesperson, Aynur Gasimova, head of English desk at Trend Agency and Sevil Mikayilova, editor-in-chief of Azernews newspaper.

During the discussions, the participants emphasized the role of Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev in improving the country’s status and great success achieved by the country under his leadership.

They noted that thanks to the president’s role, Baku so successfully hosted the forum which became a traditional event of such level, adding that during this forum, high-ranking representatives of various states and reputable experts from all around the world stressed the necessity and importance of pursuing the policy of multiculturalism.

The panel agreed that the 4th Global Baku Forum once again improved Azerbaijan’s political and economic status not only in the region, but in the whole world and showed its role in creating a dialogue between various international institutions and countries.

Spokesperson of Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry Hikmet Hajiyev said it is very important that the 4th Global Baku Forum provided a unique opportunity to incumbent and former heads of states and governments not only to gather and discuss topical global problems, but also to find the ways of resolving them.

He added that the level of any forum first of all depends on its participants.

Hajiyev also touched upon the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. He noted that during the Global Baku Forum, Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev stressed that Azerbaijan faces an unfair attitude in the settlement of this conflict.

Hajiyev said that Azerbaijan faced occupation and aggression of Armenia.

The spokesman for the Azerbaijani foreign ministry added that unfortunately Azerbaijan didn’t see enough and effective international reaction towards Armenian occupation against the country.

Hajiyev said that Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev also highlighted four UN Security Council resolutions.

“The UN Security Council is responsible for peace and security,” he said. “Unfortunately, we don’t see mechanisms of implementation of these resolutions that are still on papers.”

Sevil Mikayilova in turn said that 2016 has been declared a Year of Multiculturalism in Azerbaijan.

“Baku is becoming a center of multicultural events,” she said. “This is very important because Azerbaijan is located on the crossroads of East and West. You can come in Baku to speak about the global problems, share your experience.”

Mikayilova said that the international community must see the real situation in Azerbaijan.

“We need to show Azerbaijan to the world, because the world should see that there is a country, there is an island of peace, where different ethnicities are living without any disagreement, without any conflict,” she said.

“Every time President Aliyev states that a citizen of Azerbaijan is in core of the state policy,” she added.

Mikayilova said that this approach greatly helped the Azerbaijani government to tackle the problems, tackle the crisis.

Aynur Gasimova said that such important issues for the world as migration crisis, problems of Syria and Afghanistan, energy security were discussed during the Fourth Global Baku Forum.

It is very important that heads of states and governments gathered in Baku and tried to find the resolutions for all these issues, said Gasimova.

She went on to add that Azerbaijan can share with the world its experience in dealing with such an important issue today as refugee crisis.

Azerbaijan itself accepted the largest number of refugees in early 90s of the last century as a result of Armenia’s aggression, she said.

Given the country’s eight million population at that time, the number of refugees exceeded one million, according to Gasimova, however, Azerbaijan recovered from this crisis, which could turn into a humanitarian catastrophe, she said.

She also noted that the world today faced a serious economic crisis. The falling prices on global oil markets had a serious impact on all countries, especially those that produce and export energy resources, she said.

However, thanks to economic reforms carried out by the president of Azerbaijan, economic diversification and Azerbaijan’s reorientation for the export, the country managed to minimize severe consequences of the global economic crisis.

Full video version of the discussion can be found below.

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