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Vladimir Putin met with President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev in Baku.

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President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev: Mr President,

Allow me to welcome you to Azerbaijan once again. Welcome! We are always very glad to see you.

Today's visit is special because it is the first time we are attending the Russia-Azerbaijan Interregional Forum, which brought together a record number of participants – about a thousand people, which shows great interest in this event.

We met earlier this month in Sochi; today we are meeting in Baku, which is also a clear indicator of the level of our relations. We actively cooperate in the political sphere, as well as on economic, transport, energy, and cultural issues. We can see great progress in all areas.

We have just said so to the participants of the forum, thereby giving them another impetus to work even harder to advance our cooperation.

For us, Russia is a very important and valuable partner, a friend, a neighbour with whom we have the highest level of relations. I think that in the coming years, we will continue building up our cooperation, creating even better conditions for business in our countries and strengthening cooperation in all areas.

Once again, welcome, and thank you for your visit!

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Thank you.

Mr President, thank you very much for the invitation to Baku, and for the opportunity to attend the World Judo Championships. I can see how well the event is organised, at a very high international level. I can see how pleased the organisers are – the International Judo Federation led by Mr Marius Vizer.

They have just told me how professionally everything is done here. This is a great contribution to the development of global sports, not only judo, but sports in general.

Our participation in the meeting of the regions today is certainly an important part of this short working visit. Indeed, we recently saw each other in Sochi, but, keeping in mind the high level and scope of the relationship, there is always something to talk about.

We are to meet again on the sidelines of the CIS summit, but it is certainly great that there is an opportunity to talk about bilateral relations here as well.

We noted in Sochi that relations are developing positively both in the economy and in other spheres. It is very important now that the impetus from our interaction during your visit to Russia has not been lost and that the documents that we signed are working. I think we will talk about this today.

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