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President Ilham Aliyev: GUAM countries share common problems

19 June 2007 11:13 (UTC +04:00)

The Second Summit of the Organization for Democracy and Economic Development â€“ GUAM heads of state today started in Baku, APA reports. The summit has brought together Presidents of Azerbaijan, Georgia, Ukraine, Poland, Romania, Lithuania- Ilham Aliyev, Mikhail Saakashvili, Victor Yushchenko, Lech Kaczynsky, Trian Basescu, Valdas Adamkus, Bulgarian Vice-President Angel Marin, Moldovan Prime Minister Vasili Tarlev as well as delegations from the US, Estonia and other countries.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev addressing the summit appraised the successful activity of the organization during the one-year chairmanship of Ukraine. He underlined that as GUAM is an Organization for Democracy and Economic Development efforts should be made for promotion of democracy and economic devilment in the member countries.
â€œAccording to latest exact calculations, Azerbaijanâ€™s only one oil field is rich in 1 trillion 200 million tonnes of oil reserve. At least 1 million barrels of oil will be produced in the country next year, the indicator will in crease in coming years,â€ he stressed.
President Aliyev touching on the already operating Baku-Supsa, Baku-Novorossiysk and Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipelines reminded a large debate on Odessa-Brody-Gdansk oil pipeline at recent summit in Krakow. He said political support was demonstrated for the project at the mentioned summit.
â€œMoreover, European market is taking a keen interest in Azerbaijani gas, including Shah Deniz gas. Azerbaijanâ€™s operation gas fields have 1.5 trillion cubic meters of gas. And there exists the most up-to-date transport infrastructure, Baku-Tbilisi-Arzurum gas pipeline to transport this gas to European markets,â€ the President underlined.
Azerbaijani head of state said Azerbaijan has turned to a gas exporter from this year.
â€œ70-70 percent of Georgian gas market is filled by Azerbaijani gas. Our gas will be exported to Turkey and Greece by the end of this year as well. So, Azerbaijan will enter the European Union market,â€ he said.
President Aliyev touching on the joint work of Azerbaijan, Turkey and Georgia on the transport structure-Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway to link Europe with Asia reported the construction of the railway will soon start.
Azerbaijani President said GUAM countries do not only share common history, political views and interests, â€˜Unfortunately, our countries share a number of common problems. The challenging problems are conflicts in three GUAM member countries, violation of territorial integrity of Georgia, Moldova and Azerbaijan. Outlawed separatist regimes have achieved to occupy our lands through military aggression and ethnic cleansing against our countries. We are making efforts to reach a peaceful solution to these problems on the basis of international law norms and principles and diplomatic way. However, it seems it would be difficult to pull out the separatist forces from the occupied territories by their own will without achieving a powerful state, powerful economy and powerful military potential. So, we are uniting our efforts to demonstrate the criminalistic content of these separatist regimes to the whole world. It is very good that GUAM is taking a united position regarding this issue. The raise of he protracted conflicts in GUAM territory at the UN General Assembly can be considered a great success of the organization.â€™
Mr.Aliyev stressed the Organization for Democracy and Economic Development â€“ GUAM is at the next stage of its activity.
â€œDemocracy, human rights, building open society, the rule of law, integration into international and European structures, economic reforms, strengthening of economic potential, improvement of living standard-these are our goals and priorities,â€ the President concluded. /APA/