BTK project to mark new stage in Kazakh-Azerbaijani ties
Stepping up relations between Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan in energy sector, oil transportation, and agriculture are of great importance, said Beybit Isabayev, Kazakh Ambassador to Baku.
The ambassador pointed to the need to start using the Caspian Sea as “a transportation artery”.
“High confidence in personal relations between heads of our states, the dynamics of high level meetings, and the huge potential for mutually beneficial political, economic, cultural and humanitarian cooperation allow to confidently say that the Kazakh-Azerbaijani relations have a great future,” he told Trend.
“We intend to further strengthen and deepen cooperation in benefit of our countries and brotherly peoples,” noted the ambassador.
He further said the completion of construction of the
Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) railway will mark a new stage in economic
cooperation between Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, creating a modern
“Silk Road” between Asia and Europe.
Isabayev further noted that Kazakhstan annually supplies over one
million tons of grain to Azerbaijani market.
“In turn, Azerbaijani companies annually supply high-quality fruits and vegetables, worth than over $60 million, to the western regions of Kazakhstan,” he said, stressing that the current Azerbaijani-Kazakh ties stand at a qualitatively new level.
Azerbaijanis and Kazakhs are both Turkic-speaking people and share close historical, religious, and cultural ties. Both are littoral states of the Caspian Sea and possess a common maritime border. Currently, over 80,000 Azerbaijani people live in Kazakhstan.
Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan view each other as major allies and partners in Central Asia and Transcaucasia.
Diplomatic relations were established on August 27, 1992. Both countries are full members of the Commonwealth of Independent States, the Economic Cooperation Organization, the Turkic Council, the Joint Administration of Turkic Arts and Culture, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe.
The trade turnover between Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan totaled $76.9 million in January-September 2015, or 2.5 times less than in the same period of 2014, according to Azerbaijan’s State Customs Committee.
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