ADDRESS OF ALIYEV AT THE 2ND SUMMIT OF CICA
AzerTag, Azerbaijan
June 17 2006
Dear Mr. Chairman!
Dear Heads of State and Government!
Ladies and gentlemen!
First of all, I would like to express gratitude to Nursultan Abishovich
Nazarbayev for the hospitality and excellent organization of the
summit.
We consider the 2nd CICA summit as an event of great importance in
terms of further coordination of our states’ efforts to strengthen
security measures in the region and establish effective economic
cooperation.
The Asian region is the most dynamically developing region in the
world; today and in the future, prospects of its development will
open new opportunities for more effective cooperation in all areas.
Our countries have high-level political ties, and we are bound
up with regional issues. However, we would like to have more
achievements and advancements also in economic cooperation. In this
context, realization of the important transportation projects that
we are planning can create new conditions for regional development;
this is an important element of strengthening security measures and
stability in our region. Azerbaijan, in its turn, is ready to play
a substantial role in transportation and communication projects. We
are active participants of the project Transport Corridor East-West.
Issues concerning restoration of the historical Silk Road are of great
interest for both regional development and Europe-Asia relations. Now,
we are actively involved in the important Europe-Asia railway
communication project, and in this one, Azerbaijan is a natural
bridge connecting Asia and Europe, and our aim is to strengthen
this structure, and create beneficial conditions for our partners,
and thereby enable our countries to use their potential in full
measure. We attach great attention to the project Transport Corridor
North-South, in which Azerbaijan is also an active participant,
and is ready to place its infrastructure at the disposal of the
partner-countries. Development of any state is possible only if
stability is ensured. Positive example of our states proves that
development and social consensus exist where there is stability. The
rapid growth of our economies is a graphic evidence of that. However,
a big threat also exists in our region. It has already been mentioned
today. First of all, it is the international terrorism, which can
seriously blast our plans and lead to unpredictable consequences. The
experience proved it impossible to fight this evil alone. It is
necessary to consolidate efforts of all states, have common approach
and get rid of double standards one in this issue. Terrorism has
no nationality or religion, and serious efforts are needed for the
common approach. There are no bad terrorist organizations or neutral
terrorist organizations – common approach should be applied to all
of them. As a country which suffered from terrorism is participating
in a number of events aimed at fighting terrorism, and we will do
continue to work in this direction. Armenian terrorist committed 32
terror acts in our country killing two thousand innocent people. The
pain terrorism inflicted on our people is well known. So, I want to
repeat that only joint efforts and common approach can allow us to
overcome the evil. Another potential and practical threat is the
unresolved conflicts in our region. Azerbaijan is the country 20%
of territory of which has been under Armenian occupation for over 10
years. As a result of the ethnic cleansing against Azerbaijanis, over
a million of our citizens are refugees and internally displaced. We
believe that the resolutions adopted by authoritative international
organizations on the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict will be realized.
Unfortunately, UN’s four resolutions have not yet been fulfilled.
These resolutions demand unconditional withdrawal of the occupation
forces from the territory of Azerbaijan. The principle of territorial
integrity and inviolability of borders is a standard principle of
international law, and must be observed undeviatingly. As for the
issue of security for minorities in the territories of our countries,
practically each of them has ethnic minorities. To be a minority,
however, does not mean the right to demand separation of the territory
the minority lives in or to pursue policy of aggressive separatism. The
Declaration to be signed today determines it clearly.
Territorial integrity and fighting separatism are the firm elements
of regional development and security. Conniving separatist tendencies
and applying in this context double standard approach – to think
that violation of territorial integrity is possible in one place and
is not in other one will lead to catastrophic consequences for many
countries and the whole world. Therefore, there is a need to think
seriously about it and develop a common approach to resolution of
such problems. There is a quite positive experience of autonomies in
the world. They exist in both Asian and European regions. So, each
conflict of this kind should be settled only and only in the frame
work of the international legal norms, and under the conditions of
strengthening confidence measures.
Azerbaijan considers its participation in regional cooperation as
a very important element of its foreign policy. We believe that
cooperation in the Asian region will further develop due to both
economic potential and political interaction of our countries. For
our part, we are ready and we intend to be actively involved in all
regional projects.
Thank you for your attention.