Baku. Anakhanum Hidayatova – APA. Interview with Ambassador of Malaysia to Azerbaijan Mr. Dato’ Roslan Bin Tan Sri Abdul Rahman
- Mr. Ambassador how do you estimate the level of bilateral cooperation between Malaysia and Azerbaijan?
-As you know, only recently our Prime Minister visited Azerbaijan on 12 September 2014. The first Prime Minister of Malaysia to visit the Republic obviously before he came not many things was done together. However, our countries cooperated in OIC and many other organizations. We also have Malaysian technical Cooperation Program which offers courses to officials from Azerbaijan to come to Malaysia and to learn management and lots of other areas, which Azerbaijan would like to learn from Malaysia. This program was launched since 1993 and about 40 – 45 officials had already gone through Malaysian technical cooperation program. Hopefully after the visit of Prime Minister we will increase the technical cooperation program and of course we look forward to cooperate in many other fields with your republic.
- On your point of view, what fields of cooperation we can still develop?
- Definitely your strength is in oil and gas we look forward to having a very good cooperation in this area. As you know Malaysian huge oil and gas Company PETRONAS Malaysia has got collaboration with SOCAR and they signed a memorandum of understanding during the Prime Minister’s visit. We look forward to working closely with SOCAR.
- Are there any concrete projects between two companies?
- What I understand is that it is coming very soon. We are looking forward to this very big cooperation. Of course it is better if PETRONAS and SOCAR make the announcement.
- What agreements should be signed between two states and what agreement base do we have for now?
- First of all two leaders signed a cooperation agreement so that we could have further closer ties together. That is already signed the Joint Declaration on the Friendly Relations and Partnership, Memorandum of Understanding. There is another interesting development where the institute of diplomacy and foreign relations of Malaysia signed a memorandum of understanding to work closely with the government of Azerbaijan and in the field of training diplomats. Hopefully we will have a lot more collaboration on this.
I believe during your President’s visit to Malaysia, which we are trying our best to work out, there a lot more agreements will be signed. We are excited at the Embassy to work close with the government of Azerbaijan but also with the private sector of both countries.
- Do we have any trade cooperation and what is the turn over numbers?
- The trade that we have is about 18.3 million USD in 2013. This is the latest figures. The figure is quite small total export from Malaysia to Azerbaijan is about 15.3 Million and imports from Azerbaijan to Malaysia are about 3 million. So very small but hopefully with the first visit by the PM and with the President Ilham Aliyev’s to Malaysia soon we hope to increase the trade between our two countries.
- Do you think Azerbaijan can be interesting for Malaysian businessmen and can we attract Malaysian businessmen to Azerbaijan?
- Yes definitely our relationships will go to higher level, confidence is there. I think there is a lot of potential. Malaysian PM said he was pleasantly surprised when he came to Baku to look at the development here, the buildings and construction that you have here is impressive he did not expect to see a very modern Baku. Through that hopefully we can also collaborate in construction. There is also real estate development we could offer and work together with Azerbaijan. Tourism which is one of our main earners in Malaysia we could work together. Azerbaijan is an exotic country for Malaysians. We don’t really know this part of the world. When the PM came we had a few series of documentaries on Azerbaijan and Malaysians become to know more about Azerbaijan. We have students in Azerbaijan studying in Malaysia and hopefully we can have exchange of students. There is another interesting fact, you can visit Malaysia visa free for 30 days stay.
- Do you think two latest cases with Malaysian Airlines have affected tourism flow to Malaysia in a negative way?
- I don’t have definite figures but yes we have. There are some bookings that were canceled. Unfortunately, the second plane was shot down but we have yet to find who shot down the airplane but we don’t want to blame any side as yet, let us do the investigation and find out more. However, there are other airlines serving Malaysia,Turkish Airlines is flying there, Qatar airlines, Emirates do, an others there are lot’s of route one can chose. Tourism is not expensive in Malasiya and the weather is always good.
- Do you have any latest news on investigation about Malaysian Airlines jet disappeared almost six months ago?
- Now we observe the second phase on investigations which we are collaborating with Australian government in depth. We are on the second phase of charting the area and the study of the area in more details to search. It is very expensive adventure but we are determined to find out what happened to the aircraft.
- How do you estimate parliamentary cooperation between two states and is there a possibility that Khojaly Genoside can be recognized by Malaysian Parliament?
- In terms of the conflict we have always been supportive of the Republic of Azerbaijan. We understand the conflict. We have always supported it thought the OIC and through the UN General Assembly. We voted in favour of Azerbaijan in all the resolutions therefore there is a brotherly relationships between Malaysia and Azerbaijan. We have always worked together through Islamic solidarity. We have the position that in resolution 243 of GA call for complete and unconditional withdrawal of all the Armenian forces from all the occupied territories of Azerbaijan so that it self translate into supporting the Republic of Azerbaijan. I know and my PM understands how important this issues is for the Republic and we support Azerbaijan all through out the process.
If you talk about parliament as said this is the beginning of the new relationships once the Prime Minister has been here, I think there will be more exchanges of leaders coming from Malaysia and hopefully from Azerbaijan to Malaysia. We have our Deputy Minister of Defence who just visited Azerbaijan defence exhibition. We have our Deputy Minister of International Trade visiting for the first time.
- Do we have any military cooperation?
- At the moment we don’t. I think there is a lot of potential as Ä° shared with you the First Defense Exhibition was held in Baku, Deputy Defense Ministry came, there is lot of things that is an eye opener for us, lot of collaborations that we can do, between Malaysia and Azerbaijan and it is all looking very positive hopefully we can continue our closer ties. I think when the President of Azerbaijan makes the visit this cooperation will only be on the increase. The trade figures will go up, I hope, and we will see what we can do not just in defence industry. What was me to understand that you have some interesting areas in defense that we can collaborate or maybe purchase. Even the PM and President were discussing about what equipment we can have and what Azerbaijan has. I think in terms of talking about defense collaboration it is already being discussed between the two leaders.
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