Azerbaijani-Greek talks and pipelines

Yesterday Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev received Greek Premier Antonis Samaras, who is on a working visit to Azerbaijan.

Presidential web site reported that at the meeting Aliyev and Samaras have emphasized development of bilateral relationships between Azerbaijan and Greece in political, economic and cultural fields. It has been said that the countries have good perspectives for further development of cooperation in the energy field and it was mentioned that bilateral relationships are important from the viewpoint of development of ties between Azerbaijan and European Union.

Analysts believe that in Baku the sides most likely discussed the trans-Adriatic pipeline (TAP) project, which is considered as one of two alternative options (the second one Nabucco West pipeline) to transport Azerbaijani gas from the Shah-Deniz field to the European markets within the second stage of the Shah Deniz field development beginning from 2019. TAP envisages pumping of gas to the Western Europe through Albania, Greece and Italy. This is why Athens is interested in implementation of this project.

In Baku Greek Premier also discussed further intensification of bilateral economic ties and attraction of Azerbaijani investments into the country's economy. The analysts believe that the sides will also discuss the forthcoming privatization of the Greek gas system. State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR), Russian Gasprom and several other big energy companies of the world take part in privatization of Greek gas companies DEPA and DESPA.

At the end of April all these issues were discussed in Baku during the visit of Greek Foreign Minister Dimitris Avramopoulos.

According to the statistical information, in 2012 trade turnover between Azerbaijan and Greece totaled about $1 billion, twice as much against a year earlier.

On the eve of the Greek Premier's visit to Baku, Azerbaijan has won the second place at the Eurovision-2013 Song Contest in Sweden. Greece has given Azerbaijan the highest score - "12" - during the voting. The observers interpreted this as Greece's intention to get additional "scores" for the gas pipeline route.

However, TAP competitors - Nabucco West - gave the following points to Azerbaijan - Bulgaria, Hungary and Austria - 12 and Romania - 10. Albania gave Azerbaijan "7" points and Italy - "0" points.-0-