Azerbaijani ambassador meets newly elected Speaker of Latvian Saeima

On December 2, Azerbaijani Ambassador to Latvia Elnur Sultanov met with the newly elected Chairman of the Latvian Saeima (Parliament) Edvards Smiltens, the Azerbaijani Embassy in Riga told Report.

Ambassador Elnur Sultanov congratulated Edvards Smiltens on his election as Chairman of the 14th Saeima of Latvia and wished him success in his work. He noted the importance of signing the Joint Declaration on establishing a strategic partnership between Azerbaijan and Latvia during the visit of the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev to Latvia in 2017 and stressed the key role of inter-parliamentary relations to deepen partnership between the two countries.

The ambassador emphasized that the mutual visits of the members of the governments of the two countries this year contributed to the further strengthening of bilateral relations and opened up broad prospects for future cooperation. He handed a congratulatory letter from the Speaker of the Milli Majlis (Parliament) of Azerbaijan Sahiba Gafarova to Edvards Smiltens.

In turn, Edvards Smiltens thanked for the congratulations and noted that bilateral relations between the two countries are developing successfully and cooperation with Azerbaijan is of great importance for Latvia. He also stressed the importance of mutual visits and activities of friendship groups in the development of relations between the parliaments of the two countries. Noting that there are good opportunities for future cooperation between Riga and Baku, he expressed interest in expanding relations with Azerbaijan in the economic, trade and other fields. Emphasizing that Azerbaijan is one of the important energy partners of the European Union, Smiltens highly appreciated the growing role of Azerbaijan in ensuring the energy security of Europe.