Dear Mr. Khazar İbrahim, Ambassador of Azerbaijan to the USA
Dear Council Members of City of Carrollton,
Dear Mr. Muhammad Aftab Chaudhry, Consul General of Pakistan in Houston,
Esteemed guests,

I am truly honored to have the opportunity to address this distinguished audience on this special occasion. I am also delighted to be personally involved in such a noble initiative that will no doubt save the lives of many people.

It is estimated that approximately 1,5 million land mines have already been deployed in Karabakh and also adjacent Azerbaijani territories when they were under occupation. This is a huge number and definitely requires a special attention and special treatment. These weapons pose a serious threat against the lives of innocent people. Their intensive existence in the Azerbaijani territories that were recently liberated also creates a potential obstacle to the efforts in establishment of proper economic and social conditions that are essential for the normalization of daily life and safe return of internally displaced Azerbaijani population.

In this regard, we firmly support the removal of all landmines as soon as possible to offer better living conditions for the internally displaced people who want to return their former houses and to enhance necessary conditions in those areas for economic activities.

For this reason I would like to underline the importance of joint efforts of Azerbaijani community in Texas and Marshall Legacy Institute to train and deploy these wonderful mine detection dogs to prevent further casualties in Azerbaijan. I hope that the number of mine detection dogs will increase in near future to speed up the efforts for defusing landmines in Azerbaijan.

Taking this opportunity I express my special thanks to everybody who takes part in this fundraising initiative to reach this noble aim.

Thank you for listening to me.