Aliyev, Sharif forge strategic alliance at Islamabad talks New chapter in Azerbaijan-Pakistan ties

President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev arrived in Islamabad on July 11 to undertake a two-day official visit.

After an expanded meeting, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and Prime Minister of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif made press statements, Caliber.Az reports via Azertag.

First, the Prime Minister of Pakistan delivered his speech.

Statement by Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif

- My very dear brother, President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan, and very honorable members of Azeri delegation, honorable members of Pakistan delegation, ladies and gentleman, Wasalamualaikum.

My dear brother, it's really a great pleasure and honor to welcome you to Pakistan and sparing time from your very valuable schedule to visit your brotherly country. Ever since you have landed here, people of Pakistan are extremely happy to see you on television screens and on social media, because genuine friend and the real brother is visiting his brother country. I remember vividly, Mr. President, when you invited me to Azerbaijan back in 2023. I still carry those very fond memories of your generosity and very warm hospitality. And I still remember your delicious lunch. I wish I can have it again. But for that, I'd love to visit your great country again in coming November inshallah.

Today, Your Excellency, we had very productive one-on-one meeting and then meetings with our teams. And I'm very satisfied that these discussions are based on mutual trust and mutual confidence. And this urge and this unwavering commitment in both countries have to move forward and touch higher levels of achievement in the field of trade, which is less than 100 million dollars and does not reflect the strength of our friendship and brotherhood, the field of joint investments, joint collaboration, in areas which are mutually beneficial. Most definitely, our relations span over decades and this is the kind of genuine relationship between the two countries. As I said earlier on, we speak different languages. We speak Urdu, you speak Azeri or Turkic and we live far away. But believe me, and you will also endorse this statement that our hearts beat together. We speak together although in different languages, we think together and we stand together on all issues pertaining to our bilateral relations and multilateral relations.

Pakistan has always supported your stand on Karabakh. Your victory is an example that how justice and fair play, you know, really comes out in a resounding fashion. And Pakistan has always stood by your cause over these decades. And similarly, my very dear brother, you have always supported the cause of Kashmiris, those millions of people who have paid huge sacrifices more than seven decades to achieve their right of self-determination as per UN Security Council resolutions. Azerbaijan has been one friendly, brotherly country, along with other countries in the Middle East, Turkiye, who have stood by the cause of Kashmir. My dear brother, I recall with great pleasure your visit in 2017 during the tenure of my elder brother, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. And the history is repeating itself that today you're visiting Pakistan and Nawaz Sharif’s younger brother is receiving you along with the Government of Pakistan and the people of Pakistan.

In today's in-depth conversation, we have agreed to enhance our bilateral trade. We've also discussed areas of joint cooperation and joint investments. And if I may say with your permission, Mr. President, that we have discussed an initial figure of $2 billion dollars in investments in areas of mutually beneficial projects. For that we had initial discussion today and tomorrow, a formal discussion will take place with the teams of the two countries and then hopefully, when I will undertake my visit to your great country in coming November, by then, hopefully both sides will be ready to ink agreements worth $2 billion to start with, and inshallah there is great potential on both sides to really enhance these figures to billions of dollars in years to come. And I'm sure both sides, particularly, the Pakistani side would work overtime to catch up with the speed of brotherly country, Azerbaijan's speed, so that we can actually, you know, materialize this discussion into genuine action.

My dear brother, finally, I would like to convey my best wishes to you and your government as you prepare to host the COP29 in Baku. COP29 will be a significant international event for all developing countries, including Pakistan. We are very confident that under your wise and sagacious stewardship inshallah COP29 will deliver on the climate change related issues of developing countries like Pakistan.

My very dear brother, I once again would like to thank you for your visit to Pakistan and reiterate, Your Excellency’s visit could be a watershed moment in our brotherly relations. It will be truly a harbinger of a new era of high level of cooperation between our two countries. And I would like to mention that you a while ago presented a beautification plan of Islamabad, which has been prepared by one of your experts sitting here, our brother over there. And would you want to show your face? He has presented this beautification plan. I used to copy such plans from Istanbul and you know, and now we're copying Baku. And his team would be coming soon to visit Islamabad. The minister of interior is sitting is here. Chairman sitting here will make best use of this opportunity and convert Islamabad like Baku, and that will give you a public recognition inshallah. I would like to thank you once again, and would like to request you to come to the podium for your views.

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Then, the head of state made his remarks.

Statement by President Ilham Aliyev

- Dear Prime Minister, dear brother. First of all, once again, thank you for invitation. It's a big honor and privilege to visit your beautiful country once again. When we just met, one of the first things I asked my dear brother was to convey my best greetings and respect to my brother, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, whom I respect very much and whom I met here in this building seven years ago. Now I want, in front of the cameras, also express my respect to our great brother. It is a symbolic that I'm visiting Pakistan after seven years when the brother of my brother is now the Prime Minister.

Our brotherhood is based on deep feelings between our peoples towards each other, which go back to centuries. More and more Pakistanis come to Azerbaijan now in recent years. We just discussed direct flights between Baku and Islamabad, Baku and Karachi, Baku and Lahore. So, when the people from Pakistan come to the old city and see caravanserai, which is called Multan, they understand how connected we've really been throughout the centuries. This connection is a big asset.

And today brotherly relations between Pakistan and Azerbaijan are based on this foundation. We are brothers, we are friends. We support each other on every issue on every international case, in every international institution. When it comes to the case, which we introduce, our brothers support us and the same vice versa. Our straightforward support on the issue of Jammu and Kashmir is our commitment to our brotherhood and also our respect to international law. The rights of Kashmiris are ignored and violated for decades. United Nations Security Council resolutions clearly indicate how this issue must be resolved. But unfortunately, United Nations Security Council resolutions have no mechanism of implementation. But we, as brothers and friends, will always stand side by side with you, with our brothers in Kashmir, with international law, with justice. And I'm sure justice will prevail.

We, all the people of Azerbaijan, know very well that during the times of occupation, Pakistan was one of several countries, which always stood side by side with us. And during the Second Karabakh War, the Patriotic War, political support, straightforward statements from high-ranking officials of Pakistan supporting Azerbaijan's just position gave us additional power and strength. Pakistan is the country, which did not establish diplomatic relations with Armenia because of occupation. When we were celebrating our victory in November 2020, there were flags of Azerbaijan, Pakistan and Turkiye in the hands of our people.

We gave all the necessary instructions to members of our Cabinet of Ministers. They are already in contact. Tomorrow morning they will meet again before we meet again with my dear brothers in order to review and to analyze the projects. The initial amount of investments, which we're planning to accumulate, as my brother mentioned, is around 2 billion US dollars. We already reviewed several projects in the area of energy, infrastructure, connectivity, and many others including defense industry where we are cooperating very successfully. So, we will build a strong partnership not only on a political level, which we already have, but also on an economic level – trade, investments. Look how many documents today have been signed, and we witnessed the exchange of those documents. It took a lot of time just to exchange so you can imagine how much time it took to prepare these documents. And based on this, we will increase definitely the level of mutual trade. One of them I'd like to especially mention. It's a document on preferential trade. We identified as the initial stage nine positions where we have preferential trade format but this is only the beginning. And of course, big responsibility will be on that person who my brother asked to stand up so that everybody in Islamabad knows him. It's a big responsibility and a big honor to participate in this renovation. Please sit down. I can tell you that I already, upon the request from my brother, sent him and his team. They have been here for quite a while. They prepared the first version of the project which we submitted to dear Prime Minister. They will look, they will review and if they approve it, he will come with his team immediately and do everything in order to make the beautiful city even more beautiful.

Thank you, my brother for your brotherhood. Thank you for your support. Your visit last year to Azerbaijan a year ago in June was a kind of a breakthrough, I would say. We always supported each other and cooperated but now we engage in practical elements of trade, investments, industry, energy, transportation, corridors of transportation. So all that is our plans and all our plans will be implemented.

So once again, thank you for hospitality. Thank you for invitation, and best wishes to the brotherly people of Pakistan.