State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin will pay an official visit to Azerbaijan on Monday, where he will meet Azerbaijani Mejlis (Parliament) Speaker Sahiba Gafarova.
Volodin had earlier confirmed in a telephone conversation with Gafarova that he would pay a visit to Baku, which was scheduled for mid-September. The State Duma's office explained to TASS that the main purpose of this visit is to "exchange views on all issues of the current agenda of Russia-Azerbaijan relations" and to discuss the role of parliaments in the legislative support of the presidents steps. The speaker of the State Duma last visited Azerbaijan on an official visit on June 24-25, 2018. In addition, Volodin met with Gafarova in Moscow on September 23, 2020.
Earlier, Presidents of Russia and Azerbaijan Vladimir Putin and Ilham Aliyev met on the margins of the SCO summit in Samarkand. The two presidents met three times in 2019: April 26 on the margins of the international forum "One Belt, One Road" in Beijing, October 3 on the margins of the international discussion club "Valdai" in Sochi and December 20 in St. Petersburg at the informal CIS summit. Aliyev paid his last official visit to Moscow on February 22, 2022. Following the talks, the two heads of state signed a declaration on allied cooperation between the countries.
Contacts between Russia and Azerbaijan are also maintained along governmental lines. In 2020, Prime Ministers of Russia and Azerbaijan Mikhail Mishustin and Ali Asadov had a number of telephone conversations during which they discussed topical issues of Russian-Azerbaijani trade and economic cooperation, measures to counteract coronavirus infection, etc. On May 20, 2021, their talks were held in Moscow as part of Asadov's first official visit to Russia since he took office on October 8, 2019. During this visit, a number of documents were signed between the ministries and departments of Russia and Azerbaijan.
An active dialogue is maintained through the foreign ministries. Russian and Azerbaijani Foreign Ministers Sergey Lavrov and Jeyhun Bayramov held a number of meetings in 2020 and 2021. In 2022, the foreign ministers met on February 22 in Moscow, on March 10 on the margin of the Antalya Diplomatic Forum, on May 12 on the margin of the CIS Ministerial Council in Dushanbe and on June 24 in Baku.
Inter-parliamentary cooperation between Russia and Azerbaijan is also increasing. On June 22, 2022, a meeting of the Interparliamentary Commission on Cooperation between the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation and the Milli Mejlis of the Republic of Azerbaijan was held in the Federation Council of the Russian Federation.
GSV "Russia - Islamic world"
Photo: official website of the President of the Russian Federation
Based on materials from TASS