Distinguished Mr. Christian Zibek!

I congratulate you on the occasion of your appointment extraordinary and plenipotentiary ambassador of the German Federative Republic to Azerbaijan and wish successes in your future activities. I say it with great pleasure that the Azerbaijani-Germanic relations have some history. After establishing diplomatic relations between the two countries our cooperation increases speedily. We are glad with the work done in the sphere of economy, culture, science and engineering. RFG is one of the powerful countries of the world, it takes an important place in international politics. At the same time FRG is the most developed country of the world. Because of these we attach special importance to the relations with Germany and highly appreciate the established relations. I want to remind that the visit of the minister of foreign affairs of FRG K.Klenkel to Azerbaijan and my visit to Germany last summer stimulated the process of expansion of bilateral relations. I want to emphasize that the conducted negotiations and the signed agreements created a new stage in the development of our relations. And we can courageously say that all these are only the beginning and we have much greater opportunities in future for the development of fruitful bilateral relations. I am sure that Mr.Chistian Zibek will try to put all these opportunities into life.

I am satisfied with the position of Germany in the Azerbaijani-Armenian conflict and hope that Azerbaijan and Germany will fairly cooperate furthermore. We can remind the Lisbon Summit of OSCE last December connected with this issue. At this Summit we adopted a constructive decision for the settlement of the Azerbaijani-Armenian conflict. It determined the principles of the settlement of this problem. I highly appreciate the cooperation of the representatives of Azerbaijan and German. I remind with satisfaction the fruitful meeting with the federal chancellor Helmut Kol and the foreign minister Klaus Kinkell. I emphasize once more that the position of FRG had important role in the adoption of the principles for the settlement of the conflict.

The Azerbaijani-German relations have good perspectives. I hope that Mr. Christian Zibek will take an active part in the improvement of bilateral relations between Azerbaijan and German.

"Heydar Aliyev: Our independence is eternal"(statements, speeches, declarations, letters, interviews) eighth binding, page 463