Azerbaijani Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Yalchin Rafiyev stressed Saudi Arabia’s pivotal role in enhancing security and stability in the region, and pushing towards activating Arab-Islamic joint action mechanisms to stop the war on Gaza.
On Saudi-Azerbaijani relations, Rafiyev said: “Bilateral relations are strong and well-established. We support each other within international organizations and in many initiatives,” pointing to his country’s backing of the Kingdom’s nomination to host Expo 2030 and its initiative to host the 2034 FIFA World Cup.
In an interview with Asharq Al-Awsat, the Azerbaijani minister noted that during his recent visit to Riyadh, he discussed with his Saudi counterpart, Al-Waleed bin Abdul Karim Al-Khereiji, new areas of cooperation and the means to push bilateral relations towards new horizons.
“We presented our views on various bilateral, regional and global issues, and discussed opportunities for economic and humanitarian cooperation,” he stated.
According to Rafiyev, the volume of trade exchange between Saudi Arabia and Azerbaijan does not reflect the level of bilateral relationship.
“We are talking about $26 million annually in trade volume, which is of course at the desired level, but in the past few years, investment cooperation has been steadily increasing,” he remarked.
Rafiyev added that Saudi ACWA Power was investing in the wind energy sector in Azerbaijan in 2025, pointing to new projects that would be undertaken by the company in the future.
“Our two governments have concluded agreements for cooperation in the field of energy. This gives us hope that there will be more investment projects coming in the near future,” he said, revealing a visit by the Azerbaijani Foreign minister to Saudi Arabia, early next year, to discuss ways to expand economic cooperation.
The deputy minister of Foreign Affairs said that tourism cooperation with Saudi Arabia has been growing very steadily throughout the past ten months.
“We received about 70,000 Saudi tourists last year, and the volume of Saudi tourists coming to our country demonstrated the closeness of our cultures, our similarities, and the commonality of our traditions,” he underlined.
Rafiyev continued: “We look forward to strengthening cooperation in the field of green energy, green economy, and smart technology in our economic and agricultural systems for the benefit of the entire world.”
Asked by Asharq Al-Awsat on Azerbaijan’s stance on the Gaza war, the deputy minister underlined the need to immediately stop the hostilities and the killing of civilians.
He added: “Azerbaijan’s position on this issue is clear. It calls for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, and the need to stop the ongoing hostilities immediately.”
He also stressed that negotiations should be resumed in order to find a long-term solution to the conflict.
Regarding the latest developments in the Karabakh file, Rafiyev said that Azerbaijan regained its “sovereign territorial integrity, over its entire territory, last September.”
He continued: “We took measures to combat riots and terrorism in the area... Our priority is to normalize our relationship with Armenia to build a peaceful future for our region. We offered peace to Armenia, and the final draft was submitted in September, awaiting reactions from the Armenian side.”
