President of Azerbaijan: "We witnessed how warmly our Turkish brothers greeted our athletes"

The Games were held in our fraternal country and, of course, our athletes felt very comfortable there. Every athlete felt absolutely at home. At the opening ceremony, we also witnessed our Turkish brothers warmly greet our athletes when Team Azerbaijan entered the stadium. It looked as though our team was entering a stadium in Baku, President Ilham Aliyev said at a meeting with Azerbaijani athletes who achieved good results in the 5th Islamic Solidarity Games in Konya, Turkiye.

The head of state noted that this really shows again how interconnected our nations are: "It shows that not only the presidents are brothers to each other – our nations and athletes are brothers too. There in the stadium, tens of thousands of viewers welcomed Team Azerbaijan as their home team. I would like to take this opportunity to sincerely congratulate Turkiye and its athletes on the high-level organization of the Games and finishing first place in team standings,'' Qazet.az reports according to Ilham Aliyev's speech.

"I must also say that hosting the Games requires serious organizational efforts. I remember having to resolve many organizational matters as we were preparing to host the 2017 Games. Not every country can host the Games at this level. Although the Konya Games are officially considered the Fifth Islamic Solidarity Games, the Games have been held only four times. The first Games were held in Saudi Arabia, the second in Indonesia, the third in Azerbaijan, and the fourth in Turkiye. Officially though, these have been the Fifth Solidarity Games. So I want to say that hosting the Games is not an easy task, and the Turkish side certainly deserves a lot of praise," the President said.