July 22, 2005

The presentation ceremony of the 'Azerbaijan' Internet portal

Presentation ceremony of 'Azerbaijan' Internet portal, new project of Heydar Aliyev Foundation, was held at Azerbaijan State Philharmonic, July 22.


President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and his spouse Mehriban Aliyeva attended the ceremony.


Ceremony was opened by President of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation Mehriban Aliyeva.


Speech by Mehriban Aliyeva:


- Dear Mr President!


Ladies and gentlemen!


Dear friends!


I greet you in presentation ceremony of 'Azerbaijan' Internet portal made by Heydar Aliyev Foundation and express you my deep gratitude for being with us in this evening.


Heydar Aliyev Foundation has been acting for more than a year. We have assumed very big duties and try to settle them, implement specific projects.


Care and attention to everyone needing help is one of main duties of Heydar Aliyev Foundation. The Foundation takes very active part in settlement of social problems in the country and works out and implements several humanitarian projects. Fundamental repair works are underway at the moment at 12 schools of Baku in frame of project for development of children's homes and boarding schools. Most of these schools are almost reconstructed. Except the projects 'Highest care to diabetes-affected children' and 'For the life without thalassemia', we call on to look at such kind of problems of the society from a new point of view. Buildings are built on the initiative of the Foundation for 132 schools that are in hardest state all over the republic. Schools are built in base of the projects meeting new standards. Construction has started almost in majority of schools. The Foundation is actively involved in protection of historical monuments of the country. Restoration of Javadkhan Mausoleum in Ganja city, Pirhasan sanctuary in Merdakan settlement of Baku, repair of house-museum of Abdulla Shaig are only few of the works the Foundation implements in this direction.


But the most responsible and honorable mission of the Foundation is to teach the idea and philosophy of Azerbaijanizm created Heydar Aliyev. We try to continue this idea. The project presented today to you serves this goal.


Before starting to work on the portal we conducted an interesting research called 'Azerbaijan and Internet'. We were interested in integration of Azerbaijan to the world information arena, Internet resources in Azeri language. I would like to present you some results of these researches. According to some sources, number of those using Internet in Azerbaijan is 300 thousand, others show this figure like 400-450 thousand. Internet users all over the world are 1 billion, which makes 14% of world population. You know that Internet post system has been operating in Azerbaijan since 1991. Now we can talk of existence of Internet resources in Azerbaijan. At present, there are 3145 Azeri-language, 830 Turkish-language, 1300 English-language, 1600 Russian-language sites in the country. Regarding substance of the sites, 150 of them belong to state structures, ministries, political parties, public organizations. There are only 15 sites containing general information on districts of Azerbaijan. 17 sites exist about Karabakh war, Khojaly genocide, Armenian vandalisms. 26 sites cover the Diaspora issues.


Information and communication technologies that are one of the leading forces of globalization going in the world, taking their place in Azerbaijan and it is very positive. Internet dynamically develops in our country. Number of the organizations dealing with new technologies increases daily. We have now enough Internet resources. But studying the issue deeper, a number of serious mistakes occur. There are problems concerning the abbreviation of the web, lack of high-level search systems, lack of new information on the sites, as well except the sites devoted to the specific problem, there are very formal sites not meeting modern requirements. There are also plenty of different-language sites damaging international image of our country, containing slander and lie, reflecting attitude of Armenia on Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, biggest problem of our people. Just because of all this we considered the creation of 'Azerbaijan' portal necessary. We value this as a step timely taken. I am sure that this portal, which contains the period from the very ancient history of our country till current reality, will play important role in settlement of many problems.


The portal has been made in 3 languages - Azerbaijani, English and Russian. It is considered to prepare in near future the German, French and Arab versions of the portal. On behalf of Heydar Aliyev Foundation, I want to express my deep gratitude to all the organizations, every person having actively partaken in preparation of the portal. I believe that 'Azerbaijan' Internet portal will become in very short time the precious and exact source of information.


Dear friends, at the end of my speech I wish you big successes in your works, very bright and happy days in your life. And now I invite you to watch the video on the Azerbaijan portal.


Thank you very much.