Azernews.Az

By Araz Said, AzerNews Staff Writer

A Turkey-Azerbaijan strategic cooperation council held a meeting in the northern Azerbaijani region of Gabala on Tuesday attended by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, which concluded with the signing of numerous agreements.

President Aliyev and Prime Minister Erdogan made brief speeches at the second meeting of the Turkey-Azerbaijan High-Level Strategic Cooperation Council.

"Our relations have developed rapidly in the past period," Aliyev said in his opening remarks. "Following our Izmir meeting, important events have taken place. We have met many times. We signed the TANAP project [designed to build a pipeline from eastern Turkey to its EU border exporting Azerbaijani gas]. The decisions made in Izmir are being executed."

The Azerbaijani leader also said the relationship between the two countries is developing successfully and expressed confidence that the current visit would be a roadmap for future activities.

Erdogan, for his part, said the two countries are forging ahead with military, political and cultural cooperation and that hopefully the second meeting of the strategic cooperation council will be more effective than the first one held in Izmir.

"Whereas the trade turnover was $1 billion ten years ago, it has now reached $3.5 billion. Of course, we should be satisfied with this," Erdogan said.

The council meeting was followed by the signing of cooperation agreements between Azerbaijan and Turkey, with eight bilateral documents inked.

The Azerbaijani president and the Turkish prime minister signed a protocol of the second council meeting.

Azerbaijan's ambassador to Turkey Faig Bagirov and coordinator of a project on Turkology of the Yunus Emre Institute Yasin Tunch signed a protocol on cooperation between Baku State University and the Turkish institute.

Also signed were a protocol on cooperation between Azerbaijani and Turkish state television channels, a memorandum of understanding on the development of combined freight transportation between the two countries' transport ministries, and a memorandum on the exchange of diplomats between the foreign ministries.

In addition, government officials of the two countries signed a protocol on regulation of the operation of the Azerbaijani-Turkish joint company for seed growing and research, an agreement on coordination of search and rescue services and a memorandum on cooperation in technical regulation, standardization, conformity assessment, accreditation and metrology.

As the official meeting of President Aliyev and Prime Minister Erdogan was underway, the first ladies of the two countries met for tea, which was followed by a visit to a piano factory in the northern Azerbaijani region in Gabala. Mehriban Aliyeva and Emine Erdogan watched the production process at the Gilan factory. Then they visited the factory showroom and listened to music played at a piano manufactured at the plant.

On Wednesday, President Aliyev and Prime Minister Erdogan and their spouses arrived in a village of the northwestern region of Sheki and visited the memorial erected in memory of Turkish soldiers. Later they got acquainted with the scheme of action of the Caucasian Islamic Army in Azerbaijan and Dagestan in 1918, and a stand displaying the burial of the dead Turkish soldiers in Azerbaijan. It was noted that the complex was built in honor of the fallen soldiers of the Turkish army, who came to Azerbaijan to free the people from Armenian and Bolshevik invaders.

Aliyev, Erdogan and their spouses laid flowers at the memorial.

Besides Sheki, Erdogan is to visit another northwestern region, Zagatala.