National Day of Azerbaijan: Envoys discuss arrest of Zardari, opposition’s protest

ISLAMABAD: The arrest of Asif Ali Zardari and opposition’s planning for launching a movement against the government were the major subjects of discussion among the guests Monday evening in Azerbaijan ambassador Ali Alizada reception that he hosted to commemorate National Day and 100th anniversary of diplomatic services of Azerbaijan here at local hotel.

The reception was attended by large number of guests coming from various parts of the country and belonging to different shades of life. The guests were surprised that a government which is already facing numerous problems and country is confronting multifarious issues coming out with self-generated complexities on daily basis.

Former Speaker National Assembly Sardar Ayaz Sadiq, former Chairman Chiefs of Staff Committee General (Retired) Ehasnul Haq, Mayor Islamabad Ansar Aziz Sheikh, Luqman Afzal Monal, Aziz Boolani, Professor Dr. Javaid Akram, Senator Dr. Shehzad Waseem, Gohar Ayub Khan were prominent among the guests.

Ambassador Ali Alizada said in his speech that 101 years ago in 1918 for the first time a democratic republic was established in the Muslim East in Azerbaijan. The establishment of a democratic republic for the first time in this region was a great achievement of the Azerbaijani people and its sovereign territory was 114,000 square kilometers. Azerbaijan was the first majority-Muslim state, and in fact one of the first countries in the world, to extend equal political rights to women. He reminded that Azerbaijan under the leadership of President Ilham Aliyev is one of the rapidly developing countries of the world today and continues its dynamic progress. Over the past 15 years, Azerbaijan’s economy has grown by 300%. Poverty and unemployment have been sharply diminished, with measures of both now standing under 5%. Azerbaijan has a very low foreign debt around 17 percent of our GDP and our reserves are bigger than foreign debt five times.

In the Doing Business 2019 report, Azerbaijan climbed 32 spots and ranked 25th among 190 countries. This is one of the most successful and greatest achievements in the history of the Doing Business rating. Azerbaijan continues it peaceful diplomacy on eliminating the consequences of Armenia’s aggression against Azerbaijan and ensuring the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Azerbaijan within its internationally-recognized borders. Instead of engaging in goodwill negotiations, Armenia openly disrupts all attempts aimed at a peaceful settlement of the conflict. Totally ignoring the demands of the UN Security Council and flagrantly violating international law, Armenia refuses to withdraw its troops from Azerbaijani territories. Armenia's policy of occupation can never result in success.

The Nagorno-Karabakh region has been and is an integral part of Azerbaijan and will always be like this. International law and the relevant resolutions of the Security Council prove and demand this as well. We are grateful to Pakistan’s stand on Nagorno-Karabakh conflict which always supported and supports fair position of Azerbaijan and condemns aggressor Armenia because of its occupation of the 20 % of internationally recognized Azerbaijani territories.

Azerbaijan also always stands with and supports Pakistan in all issues. He said that Azerbaijan and Pakistan are bound by the relations strong friendship and strategic partnership which reflects the will of our fraternal nations as well and both countries attach great importance to its relations with each other.

The relations between our two brotherly states accelerated and now demonstrate a rare example of solidarity. The ambassador revealed that in 2018, Azerbaijan and Pakistan have also started relations between space agencies of our countries for the first time and I am sure that it will also bring positive impact to our bilateral relations soon.

Federal minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmad was the chief guest whose speech couldn’t be heard due to noise conversation by the fellow guests. He performed cake cutting ceremony. The national anthems of the two countries were played on the occasion.