Ilham Aliyev in Italy

Late in the evening of July 8 the AzerTaj state news agency reported that President Ilham Aliyev and his wife arrived in Italy on a working visit to attend the opening of the Azerbaijani pavilion at the international exhibition Milan Expo 2015.

Milan Expo 2015 opened in Milan on May 1 of this year and should be completed on October 31. The theme of the exhibition is "Feeding the Planet. Energy for Life." The exhibition includes 140 countries, of which only 54 have national pavilions, including Azerbaijan.

The Azerbaijan pavilion, which was first presented at the exhibition, was prepared also with the help of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation. The four-storey pavilion in the form of spheres of 1800 sq. m was built less than in a year, and presented the idea of ​​"Azerbaijan: a Treasure Trove of Biodiversity." It demonstrates the biodiversity of Azerbaijan, its cultural and historical heritage and energy potential.

Each floor has a thematic purpose - "Symphony of sounds", "Symphony of colors", "symphony of flavors", and a national cuisine restaurant, where varied presentations are carried out.

The pavilion cost the Azerbaijani side 15 million Euros. It is not much when you consider that Italy has spent 92 million Euros on its pavilion.

Tickets for the exhibition cost 39 Euros.

After the exhibition the pavilion will be moved to Baku.

It is possible that after visiting the exhibition the presidential couple will go further to Tyrol, an autonomous region in the north of Italy. This Alpine region has attracted Aliyev for more than five years. In 2011, he first spoke of the Tyrolean model of settlement of the Karabakh conflict. The region populated mostly by German-speaking population has been a bone of contention between Italy and Austria. The dispute was settled after the area which is called South Tyrol received a high status of autonomy within Italy.

However, the Tyrolean initiative is undermined by the Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan, who prefers the Kosovo model, which implies the right to self-determination.

The parties cannot reach a compromise, because the so-called Madrid principles of the OSCE for the settlement of the Karabakh conflict include a contradiction: indispensable guarantee of the territorial integrity and the right to self-determination.

Recently, the Italians offered a Tyrolean model for Donbass, which says that the idea is not written off for President Aliyev either.   -0-