Russian lawmakers prepared to act as observers during elections in Azerbaijan - Naryshkin

MOSCOW, May 25. /TASS/. Members of Russia’s State Duma are prepared to act as observers during the parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan due to take place in the autumn, speaker of the lower house of the Russian parliament Sergey Naryshkin told Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov on Monday. "We know that Azerbaijan will hold parliamentary elections in the autumn. We are confident that these difficulties - and any parliamentary elections in any country are a difficult stage - I am sure that everything will be at a high level," Naryshkin said. "If there is an invitation from your side, we will, naturally, send a group of observers from the Russian State Duma, as we did before," he added. For his part, Mammadyarov noted that he hopes for an unbiased assessment of the forthcoming parliamentary elections by Russian observers. "Observers from such a fraternal country as Russia are particularly important. We hope, of course, that our friendly, brotherly counties, above all, Russia will come, look, evaluate and tell openly the way it did before," he said. According to Naryshkin, there are no problems in the bilateral relations between Russia and Azerbaijan. "In our estimation, they are at a very high level. This also concerns inter-parliamentary ties. Active work is under way, we are actively cooperating," he added, noting that earlier on Monday a meeting of the bilateral inter-parliamentary commission had been held. The State Duma chairman also warmly thanked the representatives of Azerbaijan for their active involvement in the organization of events to mark the 70th anniversary of the Victory over Nazism, which, according to his words, "was dear not only to Azerbaijan, to Russia, not only to all CIS countries, it was especially dear to the whole of humanity." "It’s wonderful that Ilham Aliyev and the parade detachment of Azerbaijan's armed forces took part in the military parade in Moscow. Thank you very much for that," Naryshkin said. Read more