Mr President Alijev, Mr Prime Minister Erdogan, honourable participants and guests of the Congress!

I greet you on behalf of the Republic of Estonia!

Estonia, too, has an active Azeri community that greatly contributes to the success of the country. The constitutional order of Estonia treats all persons legally residing in Estonia equally, regardless of anyone’s ethnic origin. Everybody has the chance to acquire Estonian citizenship and participate in the implementation of democracy. For example Azeri Eldar Efendijev, who is here today as a member of the Estonian delegation, has many years of experience as a politician, he has been a member of the Government of the Republic of Estonia and recently, on 4 March, Mr Efendijev was again elected as a Member of Parliament of the Republic of Estonia. Let us greet him with applause!

Azerbaijan and its people are respected in Estonia. Estonia has also received support from the Republic of Turkey in our complicated preparations to become a member of NATO, and today we see Turkey and Estonia as good partners in that organization. Now Estonia is, in turn, ready to offer support to Turkey in their progress towards European Union membership.

We – the Finno-Ugric and Turkish peoples – are bound by a common past reaching back thousands of years; in the distant past, our ancestors trod the same paths in Eurasia.

We are supporting one another also today.

Estonia is pleased to support the Republic of Turkey, who is not only the heir to the Ottoman Empire, but also the heir to the Byzantine Empire. Moreover, is Asia Minor not one of the cradles of human civilization? Modernized Turkey is a unique part of Europe and Turkey’s success is vital for the whole world.

We also experience this personally, knowing that in the framework of NATO, Estonia’s airspace and security are defended by Turkey’s airplanes.

The fates of Azerbaijan and Estonia, too, have been closely intertwined through the ages. A number of Estonians have already lived for two centuries in Baku, which has always been an international centre, and thousands of Azeris have lived, studied and worked in Estonia.

We are also bound by the repression and lost opportunities of the past.

Who among us does not know that at the beginning of the 20th century Baku was the fastest-developing city in the world, with a hyper-fast economic growth rate. But the Bolshevist regime and its commissars halted the normal development of this beautiful city for dozens of years. The Azeri people were not allowed to get their share of the riches of their country and the fruit of their work.

Today, Azerbaijan is the master of its fate and the actual owner of its riches. We rejoice at the fact that it is Azerbaijan that has the fastest economic growth in the post-communist region.

Haidar Alijev told Siim Kallas, the then Chairman of the Council of Europe, the former Minister of Foreign Affairs and Prime Minister of Estonia and the current Vice-President of the European Commission, who visited Baku years ago, that Azerbaijan needed Europe’s support to survive as a country and to enable the normal development of this beautiful land.

You have our support in this. We rely on the continuous development of your statehood and democracy, your economy and culture, as well as on developing relations between Azerbaijan and the democracies of Europe and an effective consideration of common interests.

Thank you for your attention.