Baku and Ashgabat Bring Together Positions on Fundamental Issues

Baku / 02.02.18 / Turan: Yesterday in the Turkmenbashi city Turkmen President Berdymuhammedov met with the official delegation of Azerbaijan headed by Foreign Minister Mammadyarov.

The agenda of this meeting and the official comments that followed it allow us to say that the positions of Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan on the key issues have become closer.

A day after the meeting with the Azerbaijani delegation, Berdymuhammedov said at the government meeting that "Azerbaijan is an important partner of Turkmenistan", noting the achievement of bilateral agreements at the highest level and saying it is necessary to put them into practice.

"The Caspian Sea should become a sea of ​​friendship and international cooperation, large-scale works aimed at peace and international cooperation should be carried out on its territory," the state news agency of Turkmenistan quotes Berdymuhammedov.

According to the same source, during the talks with Mammadyarov and SOCAR Vice President Elshad Nasirov, the Turkmen leader noted that the Turkmen-Azerbaijani relations "are gaining new quality and filling".

"The energy sector was named among the key areas of cooperation, where Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan are in favor of creating a balanced multi-variant system of energy supplies to world markets. The geographic location of the two states also creates favorable prerequisites for the successful consolidation of efforts in the implementation of projects on the formation of international transit and transport corridors with the entirely necessary logistics infrastructure connecting Asia and Europe and providing optimally profitable routes for cargo transportation," the message goes on.

It should be noted that for many years the reason for the disagreement between Baku and Ashgabat is the question of the belonging of offshore oil fields in the center of the Caspian Sea and, in particular, Kapaz (in the Turkmen version - Serdar).

In addition, the parties disagree on the division of the seabed into national sectors.

However, both countries are interested in laying the Trans-Caspian oil pipeline, which will allow Turkmenistan to supply its oil to Western markets, and Azerbaijan - to increase the role of the transit country. -02D-