BAKU: You (Azerbaijan – ed.) are a sovereign country, and when it comes to sovereignty, you are an exemplary nation, Prime Minister of Slovakia Robert Fico said in a joint press conference with President Ilham Aliyev, Trend reports.
Statement by Prime Minister Robert Fico
– Mr. President.
Ladies and gentlemen.
On behalf of the Slovak delegation, I would like to thank you for the hospitality extended to us. Your country is famous for its hospitality.
Mr. President, I do hope that you will visit Slovakia with your delegation at a time that you consider convenient, so that we can continue our constructive and useful discussions we started today. I believe that today’s results have exceeded our expectations.
Mr. President, you have been elected a president for the fifth term. This is really an indication that you are a very important person for this country, and I congratulate you on your re-election. I can tell you clearly that our discussions in the one-on-one meeting confirmed what I think about your cou
ntry and you personally. You are pursuing a sovereign foreign policy. You are a person who champions international law. You are a pragmatic person, and your foreign policy is not limited to one direction only. You know perfectly well how important territorial integrity is. At the same time, as a representative of a country that is a member of the European Union, I can say that the European Union likes to lecture others from time to time. In my political experience, I prefer never to interfere in the internal affairs of any country.
Mr. President, I am disappointed by the discrimination, injustice and bias against small countries in some international institutions. Because we are considered a small country in terms of population. I have been listening to you very carefully, and I said this to the delegation that met me at the airport yesterday. We are ready to serve as a bridge between Azerbaijan and the European Union, we want to show the objective situation in Azerbaijan to the European Union. We must fight
for justice. Slovakia in 2020-2023 was an example of how indifferent the European Union is. At that time, the country’s criminal code was used to fight the opposition. At that time, we were in the opposition, and today, due to what happened in that period, in 2020-2023, we adopted very important laws in our parliament. However, the attention of the European Union is on us precisely because of this. In other words, we have this experience with these institutions. I can also tell our Ministry of Foreign Affairs and parliament from here that we should cover the situation in Azerbaijan as objectively as possible.
Mr. President, we have made great progress. Of course, our turnover is quite low, but there are no obstacles here. We do not have disagreements in any area.
When I heard Mr. President’s position on Ukraine, I felt as though it echoed the position of the Slovak government. We talked about what was happening at the global level, about how things would evolve after the end of the conflict in Ukraine and C
hina’s role in the world. That is, we have a very similar position. Unfortunately, our turnover is a little more than 70 million euros, and of course, the advantage here is on our side, because we export cars to Azerbaijan. There are numerous enterprises in this field in Slovakia. We need to expand our cooperation. If we have a strong president and a politically strong prime minister, we can take on several projects and implement them successfully.
Mr. President, I attach great importance to this cooperation, especially in the military field, and I highly appreciate it. The idea of establishing joint production capacities in Azerbaijan should be attractive to everyone. We have already discussed certain details of this, and our Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense Kalinák is very active in this field as well. He will do his best to make these projects successful. We are talking about production sites outside Slovakia.
Mr. President, I would also like to thank you for supporting our initiative in Kar
abakh. This is a ‘smart village’ project. It is a very interesting project. I would like to visit there as soon as possible, and I hope that you will soon visit us in Slovakia. There we can discuss this progress. At the same time, we are also interested in the construction of a small airport and we are also interested in cooperation in the field of energy.
Of course, the use of Slovakia’s transport infrastructure has become complicated due to the war in Ukraine. There is a project to import Azerbaijani gas from the territory of Ukraine through a location on the Russian-Ukrainian border. If we are talking about a volume of 20 billion cubic meters, it should be interesting for everyone. Of course, I do not think that Azerbaijan is engaged in charity, we simply hope for fair prices and have full respect for your interests.
Mr. President, I am sure that we will create a positive atmosphere at the European level as well. You know that everyone in Europe likes to speculate. They try to see the worst. We not only
want to buy gas from Azerbaijan, we also want to import gas from the territory of Ukraine to Slovakia, and I highly appreciate your constructive approach to this matter.
As the Prime Minister of Ukraine said, a certain agreement can be reached between Russia and Ukraine if there is Azerbaijani gas. It will be beneficial for everyone – for Slovakia, for you and for Ukraine because they will transit it. This can be an exemplary project and, Mr. President, let me thank you for the information you provided in this regard.
Mr. President, I want to wish you personally the best of luck. I convey my best wishes to your country and people.
You are a sovereign country, a model country when it comes to sovereignty. I have always appreciated such countries when it comes to sovereign positions and ideas. You stand up to injustice. I will try to apply the same approach to Slovakia, so that Slovakia can conduct a sovereign foreign policy, and when sovereign countries like us come together, the results can be very good.
Mr. President, I convey my best wishes to you, Azerbaijan and the people of Azerbaijan, and wish you every success in your work. Thank you for your cooperation, and you have a great personal contribution to this matter. Thank you for your contribution to Slovak-Azerbaijani cooperation.
Source: Trend News Agency