<b>They had nearly 20 meetings within the four-day visit</b><br /> <br /> As it is known, Alison Bethel McKenzie, the Interim Director of the International Press Institute and Anthony Mills, the Press Freedom and Communications Manager have made a business trip to Baku on 21 February, with the invitation of Umud Mirzayev, the head of the Azerbaijan National Committee of IPI. On 25 February, they reached the end of the Baku trip. They started the last meetings being the guests of Vugar Safarli, the head of the Fund of State Support for the Development of Mass Media under the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan (FDMM). The guests were given in-depth details about the creation, history and accomplishments of the fund and state support to the media.<br />
The last event of IPI in Baku was a press conference in the International Press Centre where Ms. Alison expressed her thoughts for consequents of the trip with satisfactions on nearly 20 formal and informal meetings. She said that, all these meetings maybe prolific for potential IPI projects for Azerbaijan media. Ms. Alison estimated the activities of Azerbaijan National Committee of IPI (ANC/IPI) productive.
After the conference, they have met with members of International Research & Exchanges Board in Azerbaijan for some discussions.
Before leaving Azerbaijan, IPI representatives have met with ANC members sharing their impressions with them.
Just to mention, during the four-day trip, the guests had meetings also with Azerbaijan Newspaper, Public TV Station, Jacqueline Carpenter, the Democratization Programme Manager of the OSCE Office in Baku and Rovshan Bagirov, Director of the Public Relations/Mass Media Deparment of the Open Society Institute Assistance Foundation, Ali Hasanov, the head of the Department of Public and Political Issues at the Administration of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan.
For the all meetings, they were accompanied by Nick Nwolisa, a department head of the International Eurasia Press Fund.
Created in 1950, IPI, a very influential body of the world media having representatives in 120 countries and the headquarters, is located in Vienna. Its annual meetings of World Congress and General Assembly are joined, usually, by nearly five hundreds of renowned media representatives, heads of states, ministers and businessmen.
Information Department of
the Azerbaijan National Committee of IPI