Ilham Aliyev and U.S. Vice President held expanded meeting

AZERBAIJAN, February 10 - President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev held an expanded meeting with JD Vance, Vice President of the United States, in Baku on February 10.

Welcoming the guests, President Ilham Aliyev said: Dear guests, once again, welcome to Azerbaijan. I'm very glad to see you. It's a big honor to host a delegation led by the Vice President of the United States. We just had a conversation about different aspects of our bilateral agenda and also regional development. Now, in a broader context, we will continue our dialogue.

We highly value relations between our countries, especially during the last six months, which were absolutely fantastic for our partnership. I had two meetings with President Trump in the last six months, and also your official visit to Azerbaijan—this really demonstrates the mutual interest and mutual will to strengthen our partnership. Today, our partnership is going to be elevated to a higher level formally, and the scope of activity and interaction between our teams really demonstrates a high level of partnership spirit.

I wish you a pleasant stay, and I'm sure that the visit will be another contribution to our strong cooperation. So, welcome once again.

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Vice President JD Vance said: Great. Thank you, President Aliyev, and thanks to your team for hosting us. We have some of the best people in the U.S. government here, and the President sends his very best. He's very grateful for your partnership. The peace deal, which I think is the seventh or eighth peace deal that he's struck between Azerbaijan and Armenia, I know he's very proud of, in part because he admires both your country and, of course, Armenia as well. But really, I think, unfortunately, the last administration made a lot of mistakes, and one of the mistakes that it made is that it had a very dumb policy towards Azerbaijan. We have corrected that under the President's leadership. I'm very grateful for that.

I know he's just grateful for the partnership and the friendship that exists between you and really our senior teams, and your administration and our administration. So it's great to be here. I think we're going to have some great conversations and also, obviously, sign this Strategic Partnership Agreement, which I'm very much looking forward to.

But this is a good meeting among friends who have accomplished a lot in the last year, and I think we'll accomplish a great deal more in the next three years. So, thank you for having us.

President Ilham Aliyev: Thank you.

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The U.S. Vice President emphasized President Ilham Aliyev’s leadership in advancing the peace agenda.

The head of state hailed the special role of U.S. President Donald Trump in achieving peace between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

JD Vance also highlighted the tolerant environment prevailing in Azerbaijan, noting that representatives of different religions live in peace and friendship in the country as one family.

During the conversation, the sides exchanged views on the development of the TRIPP transport corridor. They also discussed cooperation between Azerbaijan and the United States in politics, the economy, trade, high technologies, artificial intelligence, the establishment of data centers, and other areas, as well as issues of mutual interest.