On April 4 we mark a notable event, 25 years of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the Russian Federation and the Republic of Azerbaijan.

Relations between our nations, which have shared many trials and tribulations, are centuries old. The Great Patriotic War is a special period in our common history. In that difficult period, our people fought side by side to deliver a crushing blow at the criminal man-hating Nazi ideology. Today, people in Russia and Azerbaijan treasure the memory of the fallen heroes and pay tribute to the war veterans.

Over the past 25 years, we have preserved and increased the invaluable heritage of mutual friendship and trust. We have become truly strategic partners. Russian-Azerbaijani relations are based on the principles of equality and neighbourliness and interconnected lives of millions of our people. They continue to develop and are acquiring new characteristics in keeping with fundamental bilateral documents, such as the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Security signed on July 3, 1997 and the Declaration on Friendship and Strategic Partnership signed on July 3, 2008. Relations between our parliaments, agencies, regions and people are growing stronger. Our cooperation is boosted by trust-based dialogue between presidents Vladimir Putin and Ilham Aliyev.

We have moved forward in the area of trade and economic cooperation. In 2014, bilateral trade reached a record high of $4 billion. However, it has since been affected by the unfavourable foreign economic situation. We are working actively to return our relations to the growth trajectory by stimulating cooperation in the transport, oil and gas, agricultural, aircraft manufacturing and pharmaceutical sectors. We believe that interregional mechanisms, ties between our business people and the potential of public-private partnership must be used towards this goal.

On the other hand, our investment cooperation has been improving consistently. There are over 600 joint ventures in Azerbaijan, of which approximately 200 are fully Russian owned companies. Accrued Russian investment in Azerbaijan has reached some $1.4 billion.

One of our key priorities is to promote cultural cooperation, considering that we have a common cultural and educational space, which, I think, we will continue to strengthen. We highly appreciate the fact that millions of Azerbaijanis continue to speak Russian. Some 15,000 Azerbaijani citizens are studying in Russia.

Moscow State University opened a branch in Baku in 2010, and Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University did so in 2015.

The Baku International Humanitarian Forum, a joint project sponsored by the presidents of Russia and Azerbaijan, has won respect in our countries and beyond as a venue where current issues of civil development are discussed.

We highly value constructive interaction maintained between our foreign policy departments, including at the UN, the CIS and other multilateral organisations. This interaction will be promoted by the plan of foreign ministerial consultations for 2017-2018, which we signed during the Moscow visit of my Azerbaijani colleague, Elmar Mammadyarov, in early March 2017. We intend to sign a partnership agreement between our diplomatic academies soon.

We continue to closely monitor the Nagorno-Karabakh issue. It is our sincere desire that peace and tranquillity return to the region, that people stop dying, the border opens and economic exchanges resume there. We are doing everything we can towards this end. We are providing mediation services individually and jointly with the United States and France, the other co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group.

Thanks to this mediation, the parties have pulled closer together on many disputed issues. The basic principles of a settlement have been largely coordinated. However, Azerbaijan and Armenia differ on the sequence of their implementation. Our task is to help the parties find a balanced solution based on existing practices.

We hope that Baku and Yerevan will demonstrate the political will and readiness for compromise. This is crucial for negotiations to achieve positive results. To facilitate forward movement on this issue, tensions must be eased in the conflict zones and any attempt to use military force prevented. For its part, Russia will support any solution that satisfies the parties concerned and, if a settlement agreement is reached, will act as its guarantor alongside other intermediaries.

We have an optimistic view of the future of Russian-Azerbaijani relations. We are convinced that stronger bilateral relations are in the fundamental interests of our people and will help strengthen peace, security and stability in the South Caucasus. Russia sincerely wants Azerbaijan to be a prosperous state that is open to broad cooperation.

I would like to use this occasion to wish the friendly people of Azerbaijan happiness, prosperity, success and all the best.