GOVERNMENT OF ITALY TO RENDER TO AZERBAIJAN FOOD ASSISTANCE
[June 01, 2005, 18:40:45]

AzerTag, Azerbaijan
June 1 2005

The government of Italy will render to Azerbaijan humanitarian food
assistance at amount of 1 million Euros. The agreement on it has been
signed on June 1 in the Cabinet of Azerbaijan. From the Azerbaijan
side, the agreement was signed by Vice-Premier, Chairman of the State
Commission on International Humanitarian Assistance Ali Hasanov,
from the Italian side – by the ambassador of Italy to Azerbaijan
Margarita Costa. The food assistance, aimed for the IDPs driven
form their homelands as a result of the Armenia-Azerbaijan, Nagorno
Karabakh conflict, will consist of packages of Parmesan cheese, rice,
granulated sugar.

Vice-Premier Ali Hasanov, expressing gratitude to the Italian
government for this noble action, has emphasized that Italy rendered
great volume of the humanitarian assistance to the Azerbaijani refugees
among all European countries. It has been marked that the present
aid appears after official visit of the President of Azerbaijan Ilham
Aliyev to Italy. The first humanitarian assistance has been rendered
to Azerbaijan on results of visit of the national leader, President
Heydar Aliyev in 1997 by oil company “ENI” at amount of 2,2 million
US dollars. The Azerbaijani refugees have received assistance also
during visit to Azerbaijan in May 2002 of the head of the Catholic
Church, the Pope of Rome.

At the ceremony of signing, also were present representatives of the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Italy.