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Russian ambassador to Azerbaijan says discords between the two countries over CIS, Georgia and Caspian

05 June 2009 12:53 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Lachin Sultanova â€“ APA. A round table on the Azerbaijan-Russia relations in the context of contemporary regional geopoliticsâ€ was held at the Strategic Research Center (SRC) under the President of Azerbaijan. Russian ambassador to Azerbaijan Vladimir Dorokhin attended the round table, APA reports. SRC chief Elkhan Nuriyev said it was first meeting organized within new project, which considers live dialogue between the ambassadors accredited in Azerbaijan and local experts.

Dorokhin said there were very good relations between Russia and Azerbaijan. Moscow believes that Azerbaijan will never threaten the Russiaâ€™s security. He said Azerbaijan proved itself as a state and it was comfortable to work with the country stable inside. The diplomat spoke about the special role of the leaders of the countries in the development of relations. He reminded that after his election Russian President Dmitriy Medvedev made one of his first foreign visits just to Azerbaijan. He said Azerbaijani and Russian presidents have met for 4 times last year and double since beginning of this year and Azerbaijani President was invited to Russia again.

Dorokhin emphasized the high trade turnover between the countries. He said Russia needed in the agricultural products of Azerbaijan. The ambassador touched the humanitarian sphere as well and said despite ethnic Russians are less than 2 percent of Azerbaijanâ€™s population, 10 percent of schools in Azerbaijan are in Russian. â€œThis is incredible fact. The development of Russian language is in favor of Azerbaijanâ€.

The diplomat acknowledged that there are discords between the two countries over CIS, Georgia and Caspian, as well as some aspects of bilateral relations, for example, delimitation of state borders. â€œHowever the discords donâ€™t affect on our relations and we are solving them phase-by-phaseâ€.

Leader of the Russian community in Azerbaijan, Mp Mikhail Zabelin informed the ambassador that propaganda machine in Russia has been working against Azerbaijan since 1988, when the Nagorno Karabakh conflict began, until 2000. â€œIt created fair protest in Azerbaijan against Russia, but the relations began to change positively in 2000â€.