"Heydar Aliyev – a well-known politician in the world and a person having friendly attitude towards the People's Republic of China, played an important role in the development of friendly relations between China and Azerbaijan."
Hu Jintao
President of the People’s Republic of China
On May 10th of this year, Azerbaijan marks the 98th anniversary of the birth of the National Leader Heydar Aliyev. Heydar Aliyev was an outstanding statesman and a politician on a world scale.
The 35-year history of Azerbaijan, covering the period from the late 1960s to the beginning of the 21st century, has a direct connection with Heydar Aliyev. His political wisdom and truly invaluable human qualities allowed the young state to firmly stand on its feet and successfully enter the 21st century as an independent country. During all the years of his presidency, Heydar Aliyev took the responsibility for his homeland, united like-minded people around him, and overcoming difficult and serious obstacles together with them, created a strong independent state – the modern Azerbaijan.
Heydar Aliyev's multi-vector policy had become a state strategy that brought prosperity and stability to the country. He came to power with a pragmatic and balanced foreign policy, which allowed Azerbaijan to build constructive relations with the leading powers of the world, as well as wise partnerships with the closest neighbors.
The strategy of strengthening traditionally friendly relations with China has always occupied a special place in Azerbaijan's foreign policy.
It was the wise and farsighted politician Heydar Aliyev who laid a solid foundation for current relations between Azerbaijan and China. These long-lasting relations are rooted in the distant history of the two countries located on the Great Silk Road, which brought the peoples of both countries closer to each other centuries ago.
Heydar Aliyev always paid a special attention to China and this approach of him was visible in practice through the development of relations with China and its approval as one of the priorities of the foreign policy of modern Azerbaijan. That is why one of Heydar Aliyev’s first state visits was paid to the People's Republic of China and the first Embassy of Azerbaijan in the Asian region was established in China pursuant to the decree signed by him. Heydar Aliyev always said that "the development of cooperation with China and the strengthening of friendship between our peoples are of particular importance for Azerbaijan."
The first state visit of the President of Azerbaijan Heydar Aliyev to China in 1994 marked a new milestone in the history of bilateral relations and opened a completely new page in the history of Azerbaijani-Chinese friendship and cooperation. During this historic visit in the spirit of friendship and mutual understanding, negotiations were held between the leaders of the two countries and a whole package of important documents on cooperation in various fields was signed. According to the eyewitnesses, the visit took place entirely in the spirit of "mutual respect, trust and constructivism."
All this made it possible to create a solid foundation for sustainable, purposeful and healthy development of bilateral relations. This visit became the cornerstone of deepening ties between our countries and laid the foundation for further progressive development.
It is no coincidence that as a capable successor to the cause of Heydar Aliyev, current President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev also consistently adheres to the course of comprehensively strengthening relations with China, pursuing the goal of enriching the agenda of bilateral relations with more new contents, purposefully developing strong partnerships through sincere and trusting dialogue at the highest level and practically implementing all the agreements reached in recent years. It is not surprising that President Ilham Aliyev has paid five visits to China since 2003. And here it is appropriate to mention a long-lasting traditional friendship between our peoples. After all, it was this friendship between our peoples, as well as the personal and leadership qualities of the heads of our states, Ilham Aliyev and Xi Jinping, that served to establish a strong friendly and trustworthy atmosphere between our countries.
At the moment, Azerbaijan and China have made significant progress in deepening cooperation, relations between the two countries are experiencing a steady rise, and the dynamics of bilateral dialogue, mutually beneficial cooperation and mutual assistance is accelerating at an enviable pace.
Modern Azerbaijan is confidently moving forward while improving and strengthening its state, and we are confident that by developing strong partnerships with world powers, and most importantly, with reliable friends like China, we can safely talk about the successful future of both countries.
