President: Azerbaijan to continue moving on development path

Although 2016 turned out to be a difficult year for Azerbaijan’s economy, the country is on and will continue going the path of development.

The president made the remarks on October 7 in his opening speech during a meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers dedicated to results of socio-economic development in nine months of 2016 and objectives for the future.

President Aliyev said that 2016 was a very hard year for the global economy, adding that maybe, this is one of the toughest years in history.

“The crisis situation continues in global economy. Both the countries rich with natural resources and consumer countries suffer from this crisis,” said the president. “Naturally, sharp decline in oil prices has negatively affected the oil-rich countries.”

“As I said, the oil prices dropped and as a result, the state investments decreased, less investments were made in the construction sector and to some extent, this led to economic recession,” he said. “However, it’s gratifying that our industry is growing. Our industrial potential is growing slowly – by 0.2 percent, but it is growing.”

The president hailed the growth of the non-oil sector of economy, which was up by 3.6 percent.

“The agricultural sector has grown by 2.4 percent and I am confident that this figure will grow even more, because the work carried out in the sphere of agriculture will bring even greater results in the near future,” he added.

Furthermore, the president said the Southern Gas Corridor, one of the priority energy projects for the EU, is being implemented successfully and Azerbaijan is turning into an important transportation center.

“Long-distance cargo containers run through Azerbaijan’s territory. This means that by creating a very strong transportation infrastructure, we will ensure our country’s longterm political and economic interests,” said President Aliyev.

“I believe that in general, the results of 2016 are good. We’ve done a good job,” added the president.

President Aliyev further spoke of the recently held referendum and talked about its importance for the country.

“First of all, I should mention that the referendum was democratic, fair and fully transparent. More than a hundred foreign observers watched the referendum,” said the president.

The international bodies which were observing the voting, especially, representatives of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe highly appreciated the referendum, said President Aliyev. “This is of great importance, because usually, European structures criticize us. In many cases, they criticize us groundlessly.”

“We hold a free election, a transparent referendum. We can be an example for many countries, especially, for those which consider themselves a cradle of democracy. Let them come and learn our experience,” said President Aliyev.

The second result of the referendum is that the vast majority of Azerbaijani people expressed support to the proposed amendments, said the president.

“Naturally, this gives us additional strength. This was another test for us in the year of crisis,” he added.

“Azerbaijani people supported our policy and said ‘yes’ in the referendum. I would like to once again express gratitude for Azerbaijani people for the great trust and support,” said President Aliyev.

Speaking at the event, President Aliyev also criticized the latest statement voiced from the U.S., which the head of state described as “the U.S. simply supports the occupation policy of Armenia.”

“To put it mildly, this is a surprising statement. It is at least unfair to put blame on Azerbaijan for the conflict not being resolved,” said the president.

“How does this statement agree with other statements?!” said the president, reminding that there is a thesis that has been several times voiced by the presidents of the U.S., Russia and France, which says that “the status-quo is unacceptable.”

“With the existence of such a serious statement, saying ‘both sides are guilty, the sides are not ready for this, this issue is complicated even more than the Palestine-Israel conflict’ is simply a support to the occupation policy of Armenia. There is no other explanation for this.”

“We believe these statements should be corrected soon at the highest level,” he added. “Otherwise, the mediating mission can be called into doubt.”

The head of state also touched upon political and military crisis occurring in the world in 2016, saying that bloody clashes and wars are blazing in various parts of the world, risks and threats are increasing.

Reminding about Europe’s migrant crisis, the president said this crisis is present all over the world.

“I have repeatedly expressed my thoughts on the migrant crisis,” he said. “I would like to once again say that the people who want to save their lives are not guilty of anything. Their countries have been destroyed as a result of foreign intervention. Their cities have been razed to the ground, their friends and relatives, hundreds of thousands of people have been killed.”

“They take refuge in Europe to save their lives,” the president added. “However, in some cases they are met in Europe by barbed wires and cages. And of course, this is, so to say, the feature of this year, and this delivers a huge blow to the inter-civilization relations.”

He added that Azerbaijan has been for many years trying to step up the intercultural dialogue.

“Our activity has gained a great respect all over the world. However, unfortunately in various countries the tendency is going in the opposite direction,” said Ilham Aliyev.

Ilham Aliyev added that Azerbaijan is going its own way and has managed to build very close relations with Europe.

“We have signed various documents with the European Union and work is underway on yet another document. The proposal sent to the European Commission on our initiative is currently being discussed, we are negotiating the cooperation format,” he added.

The president added that Azerbaijan has signed strategic partnership documents with nine member countries of the European Union.

“We have been working in the Council of Europe for 15 years and our positions there strengthen day by day,” he said. “We have even been able to make a breakthrough in that organization. Majority of the members of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe already see that there have been injustice and double standards towards us, and, today, the situation has become completely normal.”

Therefore, the president added, Azerbaijan has no problems with cooperation.