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Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev addresses PACE - UPDATED

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev addresses PACE - <span style="color: red;">UPDATED

24 June 2014 14:58 (UTC +04:00)

Strasbourg. Fuad Gulubeyli – APA. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has today addressed the plenary meeting of the PACE summer session, APA’s Europe correspondent reports. The Head of State said that today, Azerbaijan is rapidly developing and reforms are carried out in the country:

“The ongoing reforms create a very positive atmosphere in our society. As for fundamental freedoms, all of them are honored in Azerbaijan. There are free political activities, political freedoms. Hundreds of political institutions, political parties are operating in our country. The media is completely free, a number of daily, weekly, monthly newspapers and magazines are published, TV channels, as well as regional channels are operating in Azerbaijan. There is a free internet access, more than 70 percent of the population has access to the Internet. We can’t limit the freedom of speech and expression anyway in the conditions of free Internet and absence of censorship. On the contrary, we are further enhancing the freedom of the media. Freedom of the press means democracy, it allows the government’s power concentration on some shortcomings. It is one of the factors creating an essential tie between the government and society. This is one of the important successes of modern Azerbaijan and we're proud of it. I want to recall once again that press freedom is fully ensured. Freedom of assembly is ensured as well. All this is a good example of how we are committed to our reforms. The reforms are one of the priority issues for us”, said President Ilham Aliyev.

We don’t do it to fulfill our commitments or receive a positive assessment of international organizations: “We are going to modernize our country and working in this direction. I have always said it and recall that our economic success can not be strong without strong democratic institutions. Thus we are carrying out democratic reforms in parallel with economic reforms. There is freedom of religion and belief in our country and it is also one of our main achievements. Our society is multiethnic, representatives of different religions co-exist in peace and tranquility. It has been so for centuries. Multiculturalism is one of the priority issues for us. We will concentrate our activities on this issue during the chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe”.

Aliyev noted that the fight against corruption is one of the main priorities: “Corruption impedes the successful development of our country too. Therefore, a number of administrative measures, reforms have been successfully carried out to fight corruption. One of the measures taken in this regard is ASAN Service. This program has been implemented for a year and a half. The new program has a great impact on the reduction of corruption in Azerbaijan. I think that our experience may be interesting for other member states,” said the president.