At the invitation of the United States, a delegation led by Mubariz Gurbanli, the Chairman of the State Committee on Religious Associations of the Republic of Azerbaijan attended the 2nd Ministerial to advance religious Freedom held in Washington DC, USA on July 16-18. Officials from more than 100 countries and more 10 international organizations, as well as religious leaders and representatives from civil society groups participated in the conference. US Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and US ambassador at large for international Religious Freedom Sam Brownback made a speech in the conference.

The head of the Azerbaijani delegation Mubariz Gurbanli stressed in his speech that our country is a secular state, state-religion model exists in our republic, different religious communities live in friendship and kindness together, our society is a model of tolerance and multiculturalism traditions,  a consistent policy is being pursued under the leadership of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev in order to further strengthen these traditions and financial assistance is being allocated for the development of religious communities.

There is no anti-Semitism and Azerbaijan is one of the key states promoting dialogue among religions and civilizations as an active member of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and our country is a model in the international community, Mr. Gurbanli added. He also reminded that Azerbaijan will host the 2nd Summit of World Religious Leaders in November of the current year. It is unacceptable to turn some conflicts into religious matter later and expressed the importance of condemning and preventing such steps.

The head of the Azerbaijani delegation Mr. Gurbanli noted that religions should contribute to peace and reconciliation, and called Christian and Muslim religious leaders for the settlement of the conflict that had been resulted in the occupation of Azerbaijani lands and about one million citizens-refugees and internally displaced persons to return to their homeland. During the conference, the Azerbaijani delegation held meetings with US officials, US Commissioners on International Religious Freedom, Hungarian Foreign and Trade Minister, as well as Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan officials, religious leaders and prominent public figures as well.