Targets of integration: Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan became strategic partners
The Declaration on Strategic Partnership of Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan was signed today in Baku. Summarizing the results of the talks with Turkmen counterpart Berdymukhamedov, President Ilham Aliyev at the press conference called this document "the highest peak" in the development of bilateral relations. As the Azerbaijani leader said, this Declaration stipulates all directions for further cooperation in the economic, political, humanitarian, cultural and security fields. Becoming strategic partners, the countries will strengthen cooperation in international structures, Ilham Aliyev said. As it was noted, the main topics of the talks included transport issues, especially those related to the construction of new sea ports and railway corridors in Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan. President Berdimuhamedov also described the interaction of Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan as a strategic factor for sustainable regional development, ensuring peace and security in Central Asia and the Caspian Basin, which should become the arena of a broad international partnership. The Turkmen president especially noted the importance of a five-party partnership format on the Caspian Sea, in the context of stability on the Eurasian continent. What other significant agreements have crowned the current Turkmen-Azerbaijani summit? In the list of documents signed by the parties, attention is drawn to the Memorandum of Understanding on the development of cooperation in the energy sector and the Agreement on Cooperation in the Field of Maritime Merchant Shipping. In total, 14 bilateral documents have been adopted, including on culture and tourism, ecology and agriculture, rail and ferry inter-port freight traffic, civil defense, etc. As it was reported at the press conference, the negotiations included a substantive discussion on increasing trade turnover, increasing investment activity, issues of industrial cooperation and joint business projects. Possessing impressive reserves of energy resources and developed industrial infrastructure, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan concentrate enormous energy potential in the Caspian region, so "successfully" located between the main consumption markets - the European Union on the one hand, and China and India - on the other. Therefore, this topic was also considered at a meeting in the context of diversification of hydrocarbon exports and the development of large transport corridors. Here, our countries can organically complement each other in logistics, the system of gas and oil pipelines, terminals, etc. This successful experience of interaction can become a model for application in a wider format.
