Ex-minister: Region needs close co-op between Turkey and Azerbaijan
By Trend
The region needs close cooperation between Turkey and Azerbaijan, former Turkish minister for EU affairs Egemen Bagis told Trend.
Bagis added that as is known, Turkey and Azerbaijan are one nation, two states, and cooperation between the countries is beneficial for the region.
"Turkey always supports Azerbaijan in the issue of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict," he said.
“The relations between Turkey and Azerbaijan, headed by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and President Ilham Aliyev, are strengthening, and this makes our countries even stronger,” he said.
Bagis said that thanks to the policy pursued by the leadership of fraternal Azerbaijan, the country began to play an active and important role in the world energy policy.
"Turkey is proud of Azerbaijan’s success," he said.
Azerbaijan and Turkey are the initiators and participants of big energy and transport projects in the region. Among those projects are the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan and Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum pipeline projects.
The Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway was put into operation in 2017, which will ensure more active economic and trade cooperation between Ankara and Baku by attracting a big flow of goods from Central Asian countries to Europe.
The Southern Gas Corridor project, aimed at ensuring energy security of Europe, will be launched in 2018. The gas via the Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline will be initially supplied to Turkey and then in 2020 via the Trans Adriatic Pipeline to Europe.
Such important projects serve the economic well-being of not only Azerbaijan and Turkey, but the whole region.
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