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developed into a transnational centre of intercultural dialogue. It was not for
nothing that the city was proclaimed Capital of Islamic Culture for 2009.
Azerbaijan is the world’s only country to be member of the Council of Europe
and ISESCO at once. The Ministry of Culture and Tourism has launched
the Baku Process to promote the mutual rapprochement of great cultures
and civilizations. The city hosted many ambitious international events on its
honourable mission. They opened with the conference of Ministers responsible
for Culture of the Council of Europe on “Intercultural dialogue as a basis for
peace and sustainable development in Europe and its neighbouring regions”
(December 2-3, 2008), at which a number of Muslim nations were represented.
In October 2009, Baku was the venue of the 6 th Islamic Conference of Culture
Ministers, to which representatives of the Council of Europe and several
European countries’ Ministers of Culture were invited, reciprocally.
The World Forum on Intercultural Dialogue, which Baku hosted on April
7-9, 2011, honourably contributed to practical dialogue. It was supported by
UNESCO, the UN Alliance of Civilizations, the Council of Europe, its North-
South Centre, ISESCO, and Euronews.
Ethnic, social and religious instability is sweeping the world. Former Yugoslavia
was the scene of sanguinary interreligious clashes in the 1980s-90s. They were
accompanied by ethnic purges that took thousands of innocent lives. Tribal
clashes in Africa last for years. Sudan has split on religious grounds. Conflict has
been smouldering for centuries between the Muslim majority and the Coptic
minority in Egypt. Lebanon is also split on the religious principle. Tensions are
building up in the prosperous Bahrain. Even Europe, long famous for tolerance,
has recognized that multiculturalism is a failure.
Azerbaijan, with over twenty ethnic entities, has found its own solution of the
nationalities issue. Despite a problem-laden international situation, with a
lasting conflict in Karabakh and with 20% of the country’s territory occupied,
the country’s leaders laid the basis of a subtle and reasonable nationalities
policy with equal terms for all ethnic and religious groups. According to the
latest population census, there are more than 178,000 Lezghins in Azerbaijan,
176,000 ethnic Russians, plus Avars, Tats, Tatars, Kurds, Ingilois, Georgians,
Jews, Talyshes, and others. The Framework Convention for the Protection of
National Minorities, which Azerbaijan ratified even in 1995, proclaims “effective
protection of national minorities and of the rights and freedoms of persons
belonging to those minorities, within the rule of law, respecting the territorial
integrity and national sovereignty of states”, which is of great importance in
this problem-laden time of ours. It also guarantees “to persons beloging to
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