The 7^th trilateral meeting of the external relations committees of the parliaments of Azerbaijan, Turkey and Georgia took place in the town of Shusha on 22 May.

The delegations of the Milli Majlis, the Grand National Assembly of Turkey and the Parliament of Georgia were headed by the chairmen of the respective committees Samad Seyidov, Akif Çağatay Kılıç and Nikoloz Samkharadze.

The chairman of the International and Inter-parliamentary Relations Committee of the Milli Majlis Samad Seyidov told the arrivals that he was glad to welcome them in the freed cultural capital of Azerbaijan, adding that our country had liberated its lands after almost thirty decades of Armenian occupation under the leadership of the victorious Commander-in-Chief, President Ilham Aliyev in the 44-day Patriotic War. This, Mr Seyidov noted, was the first joint meeting of the three committees to take place in Shusha. He proceeded to thank Chair of the Milli Majlis Sahiba Gafarova for her support given to the tri-partite assembly

Armenia had destroyed the tangible cultural and historical heritage, the towns and villages of Azerbaijan in the formerly captured territories during the period of occupation. It is not for nothing that those provinces are referred to as the Caucasian Hiroshima nowadays. Still, restoration and rebuilding work is in full swing in those parts now, and a lot remains to be done there yet, Mr Seyidov continued. He touched on the significance of this trilateral meeting being placed nowhere else but in Shusha as well as he did the historical import of the visits of the Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Shusha and of the signing of the Shusha Declaration. The meetings of the president of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and the prime minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan, held upon the initiative of the president of the EU Council Charles Michel, were mentioned as well. Mr Seyidov said then that he trusted that a peace accord was going to be inked between the two countries soon enough.

The chairman of the External Relations Committee of the Georgian Parliament Nikoloz Samkharadze extended his gratitude for calling such a meeting and described its format as a splendid pledge of the continued progress of all the parties concerned. Such encounters as this one matter much in terms of reviewing the roles of the parliaments in regional co-operation, Mr Samkharadze remarked before broaching the work done by the parliamentary friendship groups and the trilateral interaction under the aegis of international parliamentary organisations, mentioning both factors’ pushing force behind the progress of our relations. The special place of the joint projects Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan, Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum and Baku-Tbilisi-Kars in the regional co-operation and the prospects of the three countries’ economic interaction were mentioned, too.

The chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the GNAT Akif Çağatay Kılıç, in turn, emphasised the significance of the meetings in this format and thanked for choosing the de-occupied Azerbaijani town of Shusha as a venue. Azerbaijan has been trying to normalise the relations with Armenia ever since the Azerbaijani lands were liberated from the occupation. All the parties’ efforts need combining for the sake of the common future, according to Mr Kılıç. The parliaments and their members as representatives of their respective nations should work together in the name of the future. Turkey supports Azerbaijan and believes that the relations between the two South Caucasian states will be mended soon as well as that lasting peace and stability will settle across the region, Mr Kılıç was saying.

Then spoke the MPs of the three states Asim Mollazade, Derya Bakbak, Mehmet Güzelmansur, Sabir Rustamkhanli, Sevinj Fataliyeva, Nigyar Arpadarai, Davit Zilpimiani, Kamil Aydin and others. All the speakers underscored the gravity of the joint meeting’s taking place in the liberated lands of Azerbaijan and her cultural capital of Shusha.

The members of the Milli Majlis International and Inter-Parliamentary Relations Committee of the Milli Majlis Rasim Musabeyov, Ramil Hasan, Sahib Aliyev, Elman Nasirov, Nasib Mahamaliyev, Azer Karimli, Sevil Mikayilova, Javanshir Feyziyev and Ramin Mammadov, their colleagues on the corresponding parliamentary committees of Turkey and Georgia and other officials were taking part in the meeting in Shusha as well.

The Press and Public Relations Department

The Milli Majlis