BAKU, Azerbaijan, August 27. You're absolutely right, but this is based on our experience. It is based not only on slogans or statements, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev said in an interview with Saudi TV channel Al-Arabiya, Trend reports.
''Because there can be many statements, but you need to look at the core of the issue and at how these issues are being addressed in Azerbaijan. For us, first is national, ethnic identity. Second is citizenship, or perhaps citizenship comes first, along with ethnic identity. And this sectarian issue, for absolute majority of Azerbaijan is absolutely nowhere, even not on the 100th place. And Azerbaijanis, as an ethnic group, consist of representatives of different branches of Islam. But we are all united by our ethnicity, by our language, and by our state. And not only Muslims, but also representatives of other religions in Azerbaijan, feel the same.
What we've done here during the period of Independence has been to strengthen these positive trends. It's one of the few countries where Shia and Sunni Muslims pray at the same time in the same mosque. We do not divide them. And we think that the biggest threat to the Muslim world is sectarian division. And those who advocate such a division are doing the most harmful thing to the Muslim world. We must be united. We are Muslims, and for us, this is number one. We must remain absolutely free from any foreign interference. We have not only advocated for these values, but also had to protect ourselves ideologically from all kinds of penetration, from attempts to spread seeds of hatred among Muslims. This is highly valued in the Muslim world.
President Ilham Aliyev noted that my numerous meetings with the leading religious leaders of the Muslim world, demonstrate that in Muslim world, in political spectrum, or in religious spectrum there is a high appreciation of our role.
''So, we demonstrate that it is possible and we demonstrate a success story, and we demonstrate that there is a peace, stability and comfort. So this is what people need. People need to live in peace, to raise their children, to live happily, to have jobs, and not to be afraid that bombs will fall on their heads or that someone will put a bomb in their neighborhood.
We do many things in intercultural dialog. We have regular international conferences on intercultural dialog every second year, where we address all these important issues — not only issues which are important for Muslims, but for all religions. From this point of view, our role is mainly based on what we have done here, and this is how it can be done in other places. I think that now, in the political circles of the absolute majority of Muslim countries — and I have a lot of contacts with presidents — there is understanding that Muslims must be united, and sectarian division is a threat to our unity,'' the head of state noted.