Azeri president joins nuclear security summit in the Hague

On March 24-25, the president of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, embarked on a two-day official visit in the Hague, as one of the fifty heads of state who attended the Nuclear Security Summit 2014. This year’s Summit included the following topics: Reducing the amount of dangerous nuclear material in the world; Improving the security of all nuclear material and radioactive sources; Improving International Cooperation.

The Summit was opened by the Dutch Prime Minister, Mark Rutte who stated that most of the discussion in the following two days will focus on one question: “how to prevent nuclear terrorism? Or to be more precise: how can we make sure that nuclear materials won’t end up in the hands of terrorists and that nuclear material is used more efficiently and stored in more secured facilities.”

In her official statement, Korean President, Park Geun-hye, which was the host of the second Nuclear Summit in 2012, expressed her commitment to work with international partners in order to ensure the safe handling of nuclear materials in the world.

In the same vein, the government of Azerbaijan has showed great commitment towards implementing effective measures in ensuring nuclear and radioactive security. Particularly Baku has been a key international player and has made great efforts to prevent the use of its territory as a transit route for trafficking nuclear materials. In this context Azerbaijan has developed a comprehensive national exports strategic plan, together with international actors, in order to provide a firm legislation reform that is at the same level with international standards, that assures safe borders and effective check points. Currently President Aliyev’s government has made great national efforts to take his country’s legislation one step further.

In his visit to the Netherlands, President Ilham Aliyev met with a distinguished member of the Dutch Senate, Rene van der Linden and others. The Dutch senator commended President Aliyev for bolstering bilateral relations between Azerbaijan and the Netherlands, both nations have great cooperation levels in the areas of politics, economy, business, education and science. One of the success stories is the educational cooperation between Azerbaijan’s ADA University and the Dutch Maastricht University.

In their conversation, President Aliyev, focused on the fact that “Azerbaijan has been a partner country to the Global Initiative to Counter Nuclear Terrorism (GICNT) by supporting the Statement of Principles, on March 19, 2012, which is the main document of this initiative. “Since becoming a Partner country the representatives of the Republic of Azerbaijan have been actively participating in several events organized within the framework of the GICNT including in Implementation and Assessment Group and 8th Plenary Meetings held in Mexico City on May 23-24, 2013.

President Aliyev emphasized that “Azerbaijan’s first ‘Maritime Security Strategy’, which is recently adopted, defines proliferation of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery and related materials as one of the key threats against the maritime security. In order to effectively address these threats, this strategy delineates roles and responsibilities of the relevant national authorities and identifies rules of conducting the coordination and exchange of information, risk assessment and cooperation with littoral countries in the Caspian Sea.” The Azerbaijani head of state is expected to attend the final sessions of the summit and right after will return to his home country.

ANN.Az