Azerbaijani embassy in Italy organized an official reception at Roma Cavalieri Hilton on the Republic Day of Azerbaijan on May 28.
Representatives of the Italian government organizations, education and culture centers, local media and diplomatic corps in Roma, as well as Azerbaijanis living in Italy attended the reception, press service of the embassy told APA.
Welcoming the guests, Azerbaijani Ambassador to Italy Vagif Sadigov spoke about the ancient statehood traditions of Azerbaijan, history of the Republic Day. Ambassador Sadigov said this year Azerbaijan celebrated 20th anniversary of the restoration of its state independence and informed the guests about the problems the country faced in this period, Armenian aggression against Azerbaijan and its painful results. Despite all of these obstacles, the government of Azerbaijan, based on ancient statehood traditions, has achieved stable political situation and conducted important reforms since 1993. These reforms have brought its first positive results since the second half of 1990s. With its strong and rapidly developing economy, today Azerbaijan became a leading country in the South Caucasus and strong democracy in the southeastern Europe.
Mentioning the Azerbaijani-Italian relations, he said political relations between the two countries are developing in the high level. Underlining the developed economic relations between the countries, Ambassador Sadigov said Italy became the largest trade partner of Azerbaijan in the past five years.
Reminding about the celebration of 150th anniversary of uniting Italy in Rome two days later, Vagif Sadigov said Azerbaijani people shared happiness of the friendly Italian people and at the invitation of Italian President Giorgio Napolitano, President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev will join the anniversary events in Rome.
Azerbaijani music was played at the event and then the guests received books and brochures containing information about Azerbaijan.