President Aliyev hails partnership with UK, pledges cooperation for many more decades [UPDATE]

By Azernews

By Vafa Ismayilova

President Ilham Aliyev has hailed Azerbaijan's partnership with the UK in a number of spheres and pledged cooperation for many more decades, Azertac has reported.

He made the remarks at a meeting with Minister for European Neighbourhood and the Americas at the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office Wendy Morton in Baku on February 9.

"I am sure that the visit will be very successful, with very good results. It once again demonstrates a strong partnership relationship between our countries and, of course, our future plans to continue our cooperation. We have very good political contacts, very active political dialogue and your visit to Azerbaijan once again demonstrates that. Of course, energy cooperation is a very important part of our partnership and we are very happy to complete the major project- the Southern Gas Corridor," Aliyev said.

Aliyev described BP as Azerbaijan's strategic partner, which participated from the very beginning in the major projects in Azerbaijan as an investor.

"After the prolongation of the 'Contract of the Century' our cooperation will continue for many more decades. Of course, with a new gas development in Azerbaijan and infrastructure which has been completed last December, the new opportunities we have now. We hope that there will be more discoveries from BP-operated fields. We have good prospects for that. So this is a very important part of our bilateral cooperation, also cooperation between other countries," he added.

Aliyev added that Azerbaijan and the UK established the "very probably unique format of cooperation" between the regional countries and the European Union and with the strong support from the governments of the United Kingdom and the United States.

"By the way, we will have the 7th meeting of the Advisory Council of the Southern Gas Corridor in two days’ time where we will review the achievements and look forward to future cooperation. And of course, investments from the UK to Azerbaijan helped us a lot to modernize the country. These investments were mainly in the energy sector, almost 30 billion dollars. But it allowed us to use properly the revenues from oil and gas sales to diversify the economy," the president said.

Aliyev expressed his confidence that the major area of Azerbaijani-UK cooperation in the coming years will be the development of the non-energy sector in Azerbaijan.

"I looked at some of information before our meeting so that almost 600 British companies received registration in Azerbaijan, and this is really a good sign of diversification of our economic partnership. On the liberated territories, we have great potential for reconstruction and we already started our contacts with British companies. One of them is involved in the city-planning in the development of infrastructure on the liberated territories," the head of state said.

 Aliyev reiterated that the Armenian armed forces destroyed everything on the liberated territories and a lot needs to be done there. He spoke about bid potential of renewable energy on those territories.

"There is big potential in renewable energy. And I know that there is interest from British companies to work on these issues. There is a very big potential of solar, wind, hydro. So we are already planning our future on the liberated territories, and I already declared these territories as a green zone territory. So, we will use the power of wind, sun, and water in order to supply the needs of the people. We already became an exporter of electric energy. Therefore, the potential for that is really very high," he added.

Aliyev said that many other areas of cooperation between the two countries had great importance.

In turn, Wendy Morton stressed that "there are so many areas where we do work together. I am sure there will be a lot more in the future as well".

Azertac said that the sides also focused on the post-war situation, application of the green energy concept in the liberated lands, the development of civil society, gender equality, and cooperation in the field of energy, including in renewable energy.

The Southern Gas Corridor aims to bring Caspian Sea gas resources to the European market. The Southern Gas Corridor is an initiative of the European Commission for a natural gas supply route from Caspian and Middle Eastern regions to Europe. The route from Azerbaijan to Europe consists of the South Caucasus Pipeline, the Trans-Anatolian Pipeline (TANAP) and the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline.