Azernews.Az

By Aynur Jafarova

European Union countries are interested in further cooperation with Azerbaijan, EU foreign ministers said at a briefing after a meeting with Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov on Wednesday.

"Azerbaijan is at the center of the region and at the same time in the thick of the problems with Afghanistan, Iran and therefore a stable situation in the country is very important for the EU," Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said.

Bildt noted that the EU and all its members are interested in a peaceful settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh and in restoring peace and stability in the region.

Head of the Polish presidential administration Jacek Mikhailovsky said it is very important for the EU to take its relations with Azerbaijan to a very high level and in this context the country's accessing new markets in Europe is very important. Mikhailovsky added that the issue was in the focus of Wednesday's talks.

Bulgarian Foreign Minister Nikolai Mladenov said Bulgaria highly appreciates resource-rich Azerbaijan's role in European energy security, and is interested in further development of bilateral relations.

Mladenov stressed that Bulgaria is looking for new routes to diversify energy sources. The country is interested in the Trans-Anatolian (TANAP) pipeline project, which will carry Azerbaijan's natural gas across Turkey to Europe.

Azerbaijan and Turkey plan to start the construction of TANAP in 2014. Initial capacity of the pipeline will be 16 billion cubic meters. Some 6 billion cubic meters of the volume will be supplied to Turkey, while the rest will be transported to Europe.

The same day Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev received the Swedish, Polish and Bulgarian senior officials. The meeting focused on the development of Azerbaijan's cooperation with the EU, as well as with Bulgaria and Sweden.

They stressed the importance of strengthening Azerbaijan-EU relations not only in the energy sector, but also in other fields of the economy, particularly, investments.

Views were also exchanged on the settlement of the over two decade-long Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh.

Relations between the EU and Azerbaijan are maintained under the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement, which was signed in 1996 and came into force in 1999.

The thirteenth meeting of the EU-Azerbaijan Cooperation Council will take place in Brussels on December 17, the EU website said.