Everyone needs to be able to respect others' ideas and benefit from them.
Heydar Aliyev
Opening of the 'Azerbaijani room' at the UN Geneva Office
On May 18 the opening of the 'Azerbaijani room' at the UN Geneva Office took place. First Lady of Azerbaijan, President of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation Mehriban Aliyeva attended the ceremony.
First Lady Mehriban Aliyeva addressed the ceremony.
Speech by Mehriban Aliyeva:
Mr Director General,
Ladies and gentlemen!
We are opening today 'Azerbaijan room' at the Nations Palace. I first of all greet you all and express my gratitude to you for being with us here today.
I express my thanks to all persons having helped us in realization of our idea and partaken in creation of this room. I express my special thanks to Director General Mr Sergey Orjonikidze who was attentive about this project, supported that and said warm words about us.
Creating this room we wanted to bring a part of our Homeland to the Nations Palace, show our rich cultural and historical heritage, our traditional art. From ancient times Azerbaijan has connected West and East not geographically but morally as well.
High tolerance, capacity to coordinate universal values with national ones, respect to cultural and religious diversity - all this characterize the feature of Azerbaijani people formed for centuries.
I wish all issues and problems to be discussed at this room to be solved, and I believe will be solved, in base of tolerance and mutual respect.
Global goal of UN is to bring all world countries together, build dialog among civilizations and nations, respect national and cultural values of every nation.
We are living in the world facing a number of problems and challenges concerning peace and security. Conflicts, international terrorism, poverty, diseases are still danger to human life and hopes for better future. We must together respond to those challenges and build the better future for coming generations.
After restoring its independence Azerbaijan had difficult moments. Political, economic and social crisis existed in first years of independence have been removed. Today, Azerbaijan is rapidly developing. This development covers every field - political, social and economic. As you know, it is the third year that Azerbaijan has the economy developing with the highest speed all over the world. This growth was 26% in 2005, 34% in 2006 and nearly 40% for the first quarter 2007.
This progress was mostly possible due to the oil strategy of the country. Global and regional projects Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline and Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum gas pipeline have successfully been performed and assure energy security of entire region. We are directing oil revenues to development of non-oil sector in economy. 500,000 workplaces have been opened in the country for last years. New agricultural and industrial enterprises are created, new roads and highways built.
Today we pay special attention to education of our youth, make big investments in education system. I think the investment made in the future of the youth is the best one. Special attention is paid to social issues. State Programme on health system improvement has been made and is implemented.
Poverty has sharply dropped from 49% to 20% and this process is underway. In general, all actions are taken to provide convenient and welfare life to citizens of Azerbaijan.
But we got problems at the same time. Biggest problem to Azerbaijan is occupation of 20% of territory of the country by Armenia for over 15 years. As result of this conflict there are 1 million refugees and IDPs in the country.
We highly assess the UN Security Council's 4 resolutions demanding immediate withdrawal of troops of our territory. Unfortunately, those resolutions have not been fulfilled yet. Territorial integrity of Azerbaijan has been recognized by international community. But talks held so far have no result. Despite these difficulties we supported during those years and still support the settlement of the issue in base of international law and territorial integrity of Azerbaijan. I hope this conflict will soon be fairly resolved and our countrymen will return to their native places.
Dear friends!
It is an eminent day today. I remember, when the President of Azerbaijan came 3 years ago to the Nations Palace, we discussed here with Mr Director General the initiative on the opening of 'Azerbaijan room' here.
I once again express my gratitude to Mr Director General for his attention and support to this project. Today I am very happy that there is a small part of our Motherland at the Nations Palace.
I wish peace, progress and happiness to all you. Thank you.