BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 12. A special session of Milli Majlis (Parliament) has kicked off, TurkicWorld reports.

The agenda of the meeting includes a statement of Azerbaijan's Parliament on the 20th anniversary of Ilham Aliyev's election as President of the Republic of Azerbaijan.

Ilham Aliyev was born on December 24, 1961, in Baku, Azerbaijan. He studied at secondary school No. 6 in Baku from 1967 to 1977. He studied at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations from 1977 to 1982. After graduating in 1982, he entered the postgraduate program of this institute.

In 1985, after defending his thesis, he received the degree of Candidate of Historical Sciences and from 1985 to 1990 he taught at the mentioned institute.

He worked in the field of private business and headed a number of industrial and commercial enterprises from 1991 to 1994.

He was first vice-president and then first vice-president of the State Oil Company of the Republic of Azerbaijan from 1994 to August 2003. Furthermore, he also took an active part in the realization of the oil strategy of the national leader Heydar Aliyev.

Ilham Aliyev was elected to the Parliament of the Republic of Azerbaijan in 1995 and 2000.

Since 1997 he is President of the National Olympic Committee of Azerbaijan.

In 1999 he was elected Deputy, in 2001 First Deputy Chairman and in 2005 Chairman of the New Azerbaijan Party.

He headed the Milli Majlis delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) from 2001 to 2003. He was elected Deputy Chairman of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and member of the PACE bureau in January 2003.

After being approved by Milli Majlis, he was appointed Prime Minister of the Republic of Azerbaijan on August 4, 2003. Due to this, his parliamentary authority was terminated.

Ilham Aliyev was elected President of the Republic of Azerbaijan on October 15, 2003. More than 76 percent of voters voted for Ilham Aliyev in the presidential election.

He was awarded the diploma of honorary member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and the PACE medal in 2004.

In the election held on October 15, 2008, Ilham Aliyev was elected President of the Republic of Azerbaijan for the second time with 88.73 percent of votes.

In the election held on October 9, 2013, Ilham Aliyev was once again elected President of the Republic of Azerbaijan with 84.54 percent of the votes.

In the election held on April 11, 2018, Ilham Aliyev was again elected President of the Republic of Azerbaijan with 86.02 percent of the votes.

He speaks Azerbaijani, Russian, English, French and Turkish.

He is married and has three children and five grandchildren.