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Minister Corlatean, Azerbaijani President discuss energy cooperation, in Baku
The cooperation in the energy area and the political contacts in the coming period were approached in Baku, on Thursday, by Romanian Foreign Affairs Minister Titus Corlatean and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliev, informs the Romanian Foreign Affairs Ministry (MAE) in a release.
Titus Corlatean was received by Ilham Aliev on the occasion of the official visit that the Romanian chief diplomat pays on Thursday and Friday to Baku.
The two officials voices their appreciation 'for the excellent level of the relations between Romania and the Republic of Azerbaijan, concreted through the Strategic Partnership made official at the highest level, on September 28, 2009,' the cited source reports.
Corlatean voiced Romania's commitment and interest in continuing implementing the measures included in the Action Plan incorporated in the Strategic Partnership, on all the activities it provided: political dialogue, economic cooperation and investments, cooperation in the energy sector, cooperation in the security area, cooperation in the multilateral framework, inter-human contact cooperation and cooperation in the culture area.
Minister Titus Corlatean maintained that keeping the high-level political contact between Romania and Azerbaijan was an instrumental dimension, meant to impose the pace and depth of the development of partnership relations between the two countries.
In this respect, he reiterated the invitation addressed to President Ilham Aliev by Romania's President of paying an official visit to Bucharest in the coming period.
At the same time, he voiced his appreciation for the dynamic dialogue and the good cooperation developed on the level of the Presidential Administrations of Romania and the Republic of Azerbaijan. They also approached the upcoming visit of the Romanian Prime Minister to Baku.
As concerns the economic cooperation development, the two officials made an opinion exchange on increasing the presence of Romanian companies in Azerbaijan, as well as on the prospects of consolidating the Azerbaijani investment presence in Romania.
The Romanian Foreign Affairs Minister said the development level of the Romanian-Azerbaijani economic relations needed to rise to the political dialogue level, as a reflection of the real cooperation potential between Romania and Azerbaijan.
Concerning the prospects of consolidating the cooperation in the energy sector, Minsiter Corlatean highlighted the importance Romania continues to grant to participating in the creation of the Southern Corridor, together with the key-role Azerbaijan held in terms of diversifying the European energy projects through the construction of this Corridor.
The Romanian Foreign Affairs Ministry underscored that Romania remained a firm supported of the Nabucco West project and voiced the confidence concerning the final decision of Shah Deniz Consortium in favour of this project, to be made in June 2013.
The Southern Corridor projects include the Nabucco gas pipeline, the Trans Adriatic gas pipeline (TAP), White Stream (Georgia-Ukraine-EU) and ITGI gas pipeline (Turkey-Greece-Italy). Together with these projects, Azerbaijan also promotes the AGRI project (Azerbaijan-Georgia-Romanian Interconnector), providing the liquefied gas delivery from Azerbaijan to Romania, through the Georgian Black Sea area.