Azernews.Az

BAKU – Iran and Azerbaijan signed an agreement on energy and transport cooperation during Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to Baku on Wednesday.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev told a joint news conference with his Iranian counterpart after talks that neither Azerbaijan nor Iran are content with the level of bilateral trade turnover. The memorandum of understanding, signed by the two countries’ foreign ministers, will allow boosting trade several times, he said.

"The signed memorandum is multi-faceted. It reflects all important concrete projects."

Aliyev said the agreement mainly envisions creating the North-South transport corridor, cooperation on gas supplies and jointly building an electricity network.

The Azerbaijani leader described his country's relations with Iran in a nutshell: "We are neighbors, we are brothers and friends. We have an important role to play in this region."

President Ahmadinejad is visiting Baku to attend a summit of the Caspian littoral states, due Thursday. The leaders of Russia, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan are expected to arrive in Azerbaijan as well.

According to Azerbaijan's State Statistics Committee, the country’s trade turnover with Iran made up $167.2 million in January-September 2010. Azerbaijan's imports from Iran stood at $76.8m, while exports to the neighboring country made up $90.4m.

Azerbaijan and Iran are cooperating particularly closely in the areas of gas supplies and exchange of electric power.

The energy companies of Azerbaijan and Iran signed a memo in Baku in November 2009 on supplying Azerbaijan’s gas to its southern neighbor from 2010. Azerbaijan’s state energy firm SOCAR had said at least 500 million cubic meters of gas will be delivered to Iran annually in the initial stage. SOCAR President Rovnag Abdullayev said then that after the infrastructure is put in order, the volume of gas supplies will be increased.

Iran has repeatedly said it intends to purchase up to 5 billion cubic meters of gas from Azerbaijan annually.

The two countries are linked with the 1,474 kilometer Gazi-Muhammad-Astara (Azerbaijan)-Bind-Biand (Iran) pipeline that has annual capacity of 10 billion cubic meters. The Azerbaijan section of the conduit is 296 km long. The route is a section of the Gazakh-Astara-Iran pipeline, which was commissioned in 1971.