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Azerbaijan, Croatia keen to deepen cooperation

25 October 2016 [17:36] - TODAY.AZ

By  Trend


By Amina Nazarli

Azerbaijan and Croatia open a new page in bilateral cooperation as the two are keen to promote interaction in both political and economic platforms.  

The official visit of Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic to Baku on October 24 covered a broad range of issues including political, economic and security and gave impetus for expansion of bilateral relations in various spheres and confidence in further development of ties.  

The two countries have many common areas for cooperation, as well as have many similarities in the history after gaining independence.

Azerbaijan and Croatia are strategic partners and friends, President Aliyev said. “For us Croatia is one of the friendly countries which we cooperate with for many years. Strategic partnership and friendship declaration covers all the areas of our cooperation,” said the president. “We have very good political contacts, and today’s visit of Madam President shows that we actively communicate in the framework of international organizations, United Nations, OSCE, Council of Europe.”

The Azerbaijani president said he expressed gratitude to Croatia for supporting the proximity between the EU and Azerbaijan. “We are now working on the future format of the EU-Azerbaijan cooperation. We already have strategic partnership declarations with nine member countries of EU. And I think it is a good basis for a potential EU-Azerbaijan agreement.”

In turn, President Grabar-Kitarovic stated that Croatia considers Azerbaijan an important partner in the Caucasus region.

The Croatian president stressed good political relations existing between the two countries, noting that there is much room for improvement.     

“There is much room to deepen and widen our cooperation, especially in economy, investment, trade, and also in people-to-people contacts, culture, education, defense and security, and overall cooperation, coordination and consultations on regional and global security issues that affect all of us,” said the Croatian president.

The global economic crisis has touched all countries in the world, not only energy-producing. Today, Eastern Europe experiences economic problems, not being able to compete with the West, and in view of the high level of competition they have to look for alternative markets.

The markets of countries such as Azerbaijan is a priority for the Eastern European states.

Today, Azerbaijan is interested in the development of non-oil sector of the economy, and experience of Croatia with no energy resources, may be of interest of energy-rich Azerbaijan. In turn, Zagreb is interested in cooperation with Azerbaijan exactly in energy sector, being one of the partners of Baku in the Southern Gas Corridor (SGC) project.

The visit also represented energy nature alongside political and economical.

Azerbaijan is implementing major projects such as TAP and TANAP. Initially, the EU was interested in these projects to ensure the Eastern European states with gas. And after emerging Turkish Stream project, the EU does not want to be totally dependent on Russian gas. Therefore, the Turkmen-Azerbaijani gas is exactly what the EU needs, given that Croatia is the future consumer of Azerbaijani gas.

Azerbaijan hopes that at the latest stage Croatia and other countries of the Balkans will join the SGC project, said President Aliyev making statements for media with his Croatian counterpart on October 24.

Calling cooperation in the energy area very promising, the Azerbaijani president recalled the second Advisory Council of the Southern Gas Corridor held in February in Baku .

“The Southern Gas Corridor project is a global project of energy security, and Azerbaijan as a leading country is playing a very important role. This role, by the way, is appreciated and referred to in the memorandum between EU and Azerbaijan on strategic partnership in energy area,” he said.

Concerning Armenian-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovi? said that Croatia supports the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Azerbaijan.

President Aliyev said unfortunately, for many years Azerbaijani lands are under occupation. Informing about more than one million refugees as a result of this occupation, the president said that decisions and resolutions adopted by international organizations remain on paper for more than 20 years.

“But unfortunately the conflict is not resolved because Armenia doesn’t want peace. They want to keep status-quo unchanged. They don’t want to listen to the statements of the presidents of the Minsk Group co-chair countries – the United States, Russia and France – which on several occasions publicly said that status-quo is not acceptable,” added Ilham Aliyev. “So, this is a direct message to Armenian leadership, which wants to keep the status-quo unchanged and ignores not only resolutions of Security Council of United Nations, norms of international behavior, but also ignores the statements of the leaders of the three leading countries of the world.”

The most significant part of the visit was, no doubt, the joint Business Forum held on October 25 with the participation of the two leaders, to which the Croatian president has high hopes, noting the Croatian companies’ interest in the activity in Azerbaijan.

Business relations are another important issue of cooperation between the two countries, which is another factor to build friendly relations between the two capitals.

In the framework of the forum the sides underlined importance of mutual investments.

Rufat Mammadov, Head of Azerbaijan Export and Investment Promotion Foundation (AZPROMO) said Azerbaijan has created favorable conditions for investments, including in industrial and technological parks, and said the countries can cooperate in agriculture, pharmaceutical, chemical industry and more.

As part of the visit Croatian president met with Speaker of Azerbaijan’s Parliament Ogtay Asadov, where the sides stressed the significance of boosting economic cooperation.

At the meeting with Azerbaijan’s Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov, the sides discussed issues of cooperation in economy, transport and, in particular, tourism.

After the dissolution of Yugoslavia into separate states, Croatia began to build again its separate economy, focusing on the development of tourism, in what the country has succeeded today. Indeed, the development of tourism remains one of the most urgent topics for cooperation between Azerbaijan and Croatia, especially considering that today Baku has become one of the most popular tourist destinations.

URL: http://www.today.az/news/politics/155466.html

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