Azerbaijani Center for Strategic Research: Eastern Partnership Program plays an increasingly important role

Azerbaijani Presidential Center for Strategic Research Director Elkhan Nuriyev said the EU Eastern Partnership Program has played an increasingly important role in recent years.

"The Eastern Partnership Program has played an increasingly important role," Nuriyev said at the opening of the "Azerbaijan - Eastern Partnership: Regional Challenges and Opportunities" forum, which was organized by the research center.

"This says that we want to cooperate with Europe," he said. "In adition, Azerbaijan has attracted Europe as a partner, as a country with a young democracy."

Azerbaijan's cooperation with the EU is developing and has reached a new level, he said. This cooperation is carried out in several areas, including economics and oil.

The Eastern Partnership Program is a Polish-Swedish initiative under the EU Neighborhood Policy aimed at improving EU relations with six former Soviet countries - Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, Belarus, Ukraine and Armenia. The program envisages the allocation of 600 million euro to these countries until 2013 to strengthen state institutions, control borders and help small companies. The program's constituent summit was held in Prague on May 7, 2008.


/Trend/