Mikhail Gusman: Heydar Aliyev is the architect of successful Azerbaijan

National leader Heydar Aliyev became the architect of successful Azerbaijan, and now President Ilham Aliyev continues his policy, First Deputy Director General of TASS Mikhail Gusman said at the conference "Foreign Policy Priorities of National Leader Heydar Aliyev", which opened in Baku today.

He noted that Heydar Aliyev is a personality of historical scale: "We are currently working on a film about him. Heydar Aliyev is such a unique case when one person left and returned to politics twice, and both times extremely successfully. There is probably no such a thing in history."

Mikhail Gusman recalled that the national leader actually saved the country in the troubled 1990s:

"I can name only two people from the 20th century who were able to save their country: Winston Churchill and Heydar Aliyev. After all, at that time Azerbaijan was a tasty morsel for various political games of countries, clans and other external forces."

Gusman recalls that Heydar Aliyev had exceptional persuasion and argumentation skills, so he successfully negotiated with world leaders.

"The genius of Heydar Aliyev's thinking is that with the signing of the 'Contract of the Century' he united the interests of all countries, it was his victory. In fact, this document became not a 'Contract of the Century', but a 'Contract for Centuries,'" he said.