From the talk of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Heydar Aliyev while receiving Valentin Martelli, Deputy Foreign Minister of Italy - April 9, 1999

Valentin Martelli: Mr. President, First of all, I want to express my deepest gratitude to you on behalf of the government of Italy. Today you have participated in the inauguration of the new embassy building. We are very pleased that we were able to show you the building of our embassy.

Heydar Aliyev: Thank you. The climate of Azerbaijan is similar to that of Italy. Weather here is as in Italy. Perhaps, you have warmer weather.

Your ambassador has found a perfect place for the building your embassy. I think this is the first embassy in Icherisher. Icherisher is the most ancient part of Baku. The building itself is also good, I liked it. It resembles the architecture of Italy.

Generally, Italy is a beautiful country. All your cities are known for their great historical monuments. The history of Azerbaijan is just as great, and it has many historical monuments. Therefore, it would be good if you looked around our city more.

I talked about the Italian-Azerbaijani relations, when I was at the embassy today. I want to repeat that we attach great importance to these relations. We try to expand these relations after my visit to Italy in 1997 and we have great opportunities for this. In any case, we adhere to this position on our part and in future we will continue in the same spirit.

Valentin Martelli: Mr. President, we remember your visits to Rome, Naples and Capri with great pleasure. Dance and music groups, who were with you there, remember you with great pleasure. We hope that it will be possible to repeat those grand festivities again.

Heydar Aliyev: I have heard a lot about Sardinia, but not seen. We will implement it next time when I come to Italy. 

Translated from "Azerbaijan", April 10, 1999