Greek president to visit Azerbaijan

"We expect Papoulias to pay an official visit to Azerbaijan in the first half of 2011," Azerbaijani Ambassador to Greece Rahman Mustafayev told Trend.

"President Ilham Aliyev paid a state visit to Greece in February 2009. The visit led to a significant revival of bilateral ties and relations and increased interest of the Greek political and business elite in our country," Mustafayev said. "We are now interested in the Greek president's return visit to Azerbaijan. According to my information, the Greek presidential administration included the Azerbaijan visit in its program of foreign visits for 2011 and it allegedly will take part in the first half of 2011."

This fact, he said, shows that Athens pays great attention to cooperation with Azerbaijan.
Mustafayev noted that 2010 was rich with the Azerbaijani officials' visits to Greece.

Emergency Situations Minister Kamaladdin Heydarov visited Greece in February this year.  During the visit, the sides signed agreement on cooperation in this field. In May, Industry and Energy Minister Natiq Aliyev visited Athens, during which he held talks with the energy and economy ministers, as well as leaders of major oil and gas companies. As a result of these negotiations, the leading Greek oil company Hellenic Petroleum has expressed interest to visit Baku for talks with leaders of Azerbaijan and the Sate Oil Company of the Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR).


/Trend/