Dmitry Medvedev held talks with Azerbaijani Prime Minister Artur Rasizade.
Dmitry
Medvedev’s remarks:
Russia-Azerbaijan talks
Mr Prime Minister, ladies and gentlemen, life is a combination of factors that remain stable and new developments, changes. Your comrades and colleagues with whom you work often are among your factors of stability. I remember meeting with you in this building, in this office about 10 years ago. I’d like to say that over these years, on the one hand, in certain respects, we have remained the same, but on the other hand, we have changed greatly. Our countries have changed, the conditions under which our countries develop have changed, and our approaches and even expectations have changed in certain respects, but our relations have remained stable. They are still friendly and strategic. I believe that this element should be preserved at all costs. This is why we are here today. I accept the rebuke to the effect that we are not such frequent guests here. I’d like to repeat the invitation for you to visit Russia; it is absolutely sincere and straightforward.
Regarding the issues, you have brilliantly addressed the entire range of our relations, economic and social, as well as the difficulties that our economies are facing, as our countries’ economies are similar. The Azerbaijani economy is, of course, smaller than Russia’s, but we have similar difficulties, as our economies have largely evolved as single-product economies and we rose as hydrocarbons rose and we declined as hydrocarbon prices dropped. Hence, the challenging goal, namely, to diversify our economies, i.e. to make them less dependent on the sale of oil, gas and similar products. This goal is in our reach, but it will take time and, naturally, concerted efforts.
By the way, today we discussed it with the President and you also mentioned it, there are projects where we have made progress in a different area. This is not energy but cooperation in pharmaceutics, pharmacology. An important event related to launching a production facility is expected soon. This means there are excellent prospects for our cooperation. I believe that we are in a position to overcome the decline in our trade turnover, as well as, of course, the difficult situation on export markets.
Of course, I will make no secret of the fact that our visit was planned well in advance but is held ahead of time, due to a number of factors, above all the present aggravation of the situation on the border. Indeed, the situation is very is complicated due to the escalation of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Our wish is simple; our wish, the Russian Federation’s wish, is to bring about peace and stable agreements that will ensure the normal development of the two states, i.e. Azerbaijan and Armenia, and at the same time provide prerequisites for the region’s development as a whole. Other people also live in this region and there are also other countries there, and we also consider ourselves to be part of this region, so this is of paramount importance for us. This is in fact the rationale behind the present visit.
Again, thank you very much for your hospitality. I wish you success. No one has any doubt that yours is a challenging job, but at the same time many of my colleagues are quite successful in this regard. The way you have been doing this for 20 years is probably worthy of a book because if a person has stayed in this office for 20 years he must have learned something. Thank you very much. I wish you good health and success.
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