Azerbaijan to establish cooperation with Lithuania within TRACECA

By  Trend

Lithuania is a very promising country for Azerbaijan because it has one of the important ports in the Baltic Sea - Port of Klaip?da, which is a rather important facility in the Baltic Sea, where big freight and ferry transportation services are carried out, Azerbaijan’s National Secretary of the TRACECA program, expert in the field of transport and logistics Akif Mustafayev told Trend.

Mustafayev was commenting on Lithuania’s proposal to Azerbaijan regarding partnership in the Europe-China transportation chain through the Europe-Caucasus-Asia transport corridor (TRACECA).

The expert stressed that Lithuania has access to Central Asia and China in several ways through the North-South International Transport Corridor, the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars transport corridor and also through the Black Sea with the access to the Caspian Sea through Georgia and Azerbaijan.

"The Baku International Sea Trade Port has recently concluded a cooperation agreement with the Romanian port of Constanta," Mustafayev added.

The expert stressed that the Baku International Sea Trade Port in Alat settlement and the Port of Klaip?da in Lithuania may cooperate within TRACECA in the future.

"We have the opportunity to cooperate on the Viking Train (a railway project linking the container lines of the Baltic Sea, Black Sea, Mediterranean Sea and Caspian Sea) in the near future," the expert added. "The cooperation with Azerbaijan will give Lithuania ample opportunities to increase loading of its port and cargo transportation to Asia and back."

TRACECA is a program of international cooperation between the EU and the partner countries in the creation of the Europe-Caucasus-Asia transport corridor. In organizational terms, TRACECA is an intergovernmental commission.

TRACECA program was established in 1993 on the basis of the Brussels Declaration with the participation of Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. Moldova, Mongolia and Ukraine joined the program later; Turkey, Romania and Bulgaria in 2000, Iran in 2009.