Azernews.Az

During its two-year chairmanship in the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) Azerbaijan will try to tackle the unresolved issues within the ECO, in particular, causes of mutual misunderstanding among the organization's member-states, head of social and political affairs at the Presidential Administration, Ali Hasanov, told Trend news agency on Wednesday.

"Azerbaijan will seek to ensure that the organization's member-states take into account their interests, as well as the interests of each other both in external and domestic affairs, define relations with each other and with other countries, refuse to interfere in the internal affairs of each other, and support each other's interests and people in both bilateral and multilateral relations. Therefore, we expect much from the ECO," Hasanov said.

ECO was founded by Turkey, Iran and Pakistan in 1985. Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Afghanistan joined the organization in 1992.

Hasanov said Azerbaijan is one of the most active members of the ECO.

"From the first day of membership till present we have been able to develop partner relations on economic, political and international issues with majority of the ECO member-states. Azerbaijan has established partnership relations with Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Central Asian countries in the transportation, energy fields and freight traffic, establishing links between the East and West and becoming a country that initiated most feasible projects implemented in these areas," Hasanov noted.

Azerbaijan's activity has clearly been demonstrated by the implementation of the TRACECA project at a conference on the Great Silk Road, which was held in Baku in 1998 and attended not only by the ECO member states, but also other Eurasian states, he said.

"In addition, Azerbaijan is engaged in efficient activity on other vectors of transport and communications system "East-West" and "North-South" with the participation of the ECO member-states and cooperates with these countries in the development and hydrocarbon resources supply from the Caspian Sea to the world market," Hasanov said.

Hasanov said Azerbaijan has partnership relations with these countries also in the cultural, social and political fields. "Most of these countries are Muslim countries, and we have a cultural and spiritual proximity with them, our peoples share common national and moral values, we share common religion, common language and culture, and we share common historical values with them."

"Therefore, we have really been the most active members of the ECO in the past period and have taken important steps in the name of the state and the nation taking advantage of this organization's opportunities," he said.

According to Hasanov, as the ECO chairman, Azerbaijan will be actively engaged in implementing this work.

The summit of the regional intergovernmental Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) was held on Tuesday at the Heydar Aliyev Center in Baku.

The top-level meeting followed the 20th Meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the ECO, which discussedthe agenda of the heads of state meeting on Monday.

The summit was attended by Presidents Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan, Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, Emomali Rahmon of Tajikistan, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, as well as high-ranking representatives of the ECO member-states.

ECO presidency passed to Azerbaijan from Turkey.

The summit adopted the ECO 2012 Baku Declaration, awarded prizes in various fields. It was agreed that the next ECO summit will be held in the capital of Pakistan, Islamabad.