HIS EXCELLENCY MR. ILHAM ALIYEV, PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF AZERBAIJAN

Honorable Mr. President!

As the Advisory Council of Religious Confessions in Azerbaijan, we sincerely greet Your Excellency in this new year of 2026 and convey our best wishes and blessings to you and your family.
Your Excellency! We feel a great sense of honor to express our deep respect and gratitude for the high level of attention, care, and practical support you have shown to the religious communities of Azerbaijan in the first days of the New Year.
As the architect of Azerbaijan's success and achievements in all spheres of life through your wise statesmanship, your traditional patronage and material-spiritual support for the religious-spiritual field—which holds high value—is a deed pleasing to the Almighty Creator and serves as a wonderful example for the entire world. Your Excellency, who has elevated the path of high spirituality initiated by the National Leader Heydar Aliyev to its peaks, is a world-class determined leader and a wise statesman who has succeeded in strengthening the state policy of Azerbaijan based on national-spiritual and universal-multicultural values on an international level.
We, the heads of religious confessions in Azerbaijan, take pride in your personality, your decisions, and initiatives of domestic and global significance, and we are proud of the level of trust you have gained on the world stage. Under your leadership, Azerbaijan demonstrates through an example of wise governance how states can achieve great victories and create wonders through respect for traditional values, multicultural heritage, and a culture of peaceful coexistence. Following the Great Karabakh Victory, which was won under the leadership of Your Excellency—who fully restored Azerbaijan's territorial integrity and sovereignty over its ancestral lands—you continue to bestow victories of historical importance upon the Azerbaijani people on the global political-diplomatic stage, such as the signing of the tripartite framework agreement at the Washington Peace Summit and the reaching of an agreement regarding the Zangezur corridor.
Amidst the crises in the system of spiritual values, conflicts based on ethnic, religious, and racial grounds, and prevailing xenophobic thoughts in the world, Azerbaijan—with its environment of religious-spiritual harmony, culture of interreligious friendship and brotherhood, inter-sectarian understanding, and model of multiculturalism—is a morning star and a guiding lighthouse. It is your intellect and deeds, Mr. President, that give strength to the light of this lighthouse! Your exceptional care and attention to spiritual heritage and religious temples, as fruits of Your Excellency’s wise statesmanship, are an example for the world. We are confident that the declaration of 2026 as the "Year of Urban Planning and Architecture" in Azerbaijan will, God willing, provide valuable contributions to the restoration and reconstruction of our ancient cultural-spiritual monuments and religious temples of world importance in accordance with the centuries-old, rich, and bright traditions of national architecture, as well as the construction of new ones.
Your Excellency! You can be certain that Azerbaijani religious figures and all believers are always by Your Excellency's side, supporting your wise domestic and foreign policy, and their prayers are always with you. We pray to the Almighty Creator for success in your selfless activities for the sake of the Azerbaijani people and state. We ask the Great Lord to prosper the efforts and deeds of our leader, who is distinguished by his respect for national-spiritual and universal values, and our victorious leader who brings pride to our country on the world stage. May Almighty Allah always keep Your Excellency at the heights! Amen!

With deep respect and esteem,

Sheikh-ul-Islam Allahshukur PASHAZADE – Chairman of the Caucasus Muslims Board
ALEKSIY – Bishop of Baku and Azerbaijan of the Russian Orthodox Church
Vladimir FEKETE – Ordinary of the Apostolic Prefecture of the Roman Catholic Church in Azerbaijan
Milikh YEVDAYEV – Head of the Community of Mountain Jews in Azerbaijan
Aleksandr SHAROVSKI – Head of the European Jewish Community in Baku
Robert MOBILI – Chairman of the Albanian-Udi Christian Religious Community
Zamir ISAYEV – Head of the Baku Religious Community of Sephardic Jews