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Presidents of Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Russia and Turkmenistan meet in Aktau

12 September 2009 08:17 (UTC +04:00)

According to APA, in his welcoming speech Nursultan Nazarbayev thanked the heads of states for accepting invitation to the meeting. â€œToday we donâ€™t discuss the problem of Caspian Sea. We discussed this issue last time in Tehran and decided to hold next meeting in Baku. I hope we will gather soon, with participation of Tehran, and discuss this important issue again. Therefore this issue was not on agenda today. This is informal meeting. We can discuss the bilateral and multilateral issues and enjoy with the Caspian seasideâ€.

Then President of Russia Dmitriy Medvedev addressed the meeting. He said the countries had bilateral projects and emphasized the necessity of their development. â€œI consider that, of course, the Caspian issue should be discussed with the participation of all littoral states. Therefore proposed idea â€“ the idea of discussions here and then according to the decision of Tehran meeting preparations for Baku Summit is a useful idea. But we need to agree the basic parameters until then. There are enough issues, both bilateral and multilateral, on agenda of todayâ€™s meeting. There are several large international meetings ahead like UN General Assembly. We will participate at that meeting. Then leaders of 20 countries with largest economy in the world will meet following the General Assembly session. I would like friendly to inform you about Russian position, about our proposals and what phase we are in. It seems the economies started to walk away from the crisis. But it is early to calm down and it is very important for the world community and the largest economies to make next steps toward reforms and reorganization of the international financial system. I feel that today not all countries are working for that. Somebody wants to freeze this situation and to look like everything is OK. It means that no one is guilty and it will be better in future. Indeed it is not so. We need fundamentally to reorganize the international financial system. Our countries suffer from the global financial crisis. We all have problems. Therefore I would like to discuss with you our approaches and to protect this position at the meeting of 20. Of course, we should discuss other issues within our opportunitiesâ€.

President of Turkmenistan Gurbagulu Berdimuhammedov said the Caspian issues should be discussed in five-side format with participation of Iran. â€œIt was correctly mentioned here that we have many bilateral and regional issues to discuss. I think our meeting will bring very good results in the field of cooperationâ€.

Then President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev addressed the meeting. â€œWe are frequently meeting within the different events, including CIS formal and informal summits. Our communication is a natural process and this meeting will also create very good opportunity for discussion of issues of mutual interests in both bilateral and multilateral formats. Our countries have very good relations. We are preparing for the next summit in Baku according to the decision passed at the last summit of Caspian littoral states in Tehran. An intensive work is done and experts are working intensively. Of course, we would like to meet the Baku Summit with concrete decisions and to make this summit a large step forward like Tehran Summit. The decision of Tehran Summit are very important and I believe that implementation of those decisions will enable us successfully to solve the issues of delimitation of the Caspian Sea on the basis of friendship and peaceful neighborhood. Today we have a good opportunity to discuss other issues between our countries as wellâ€.

President of Azerbaijan ended his visit to Kazakhstan on September 11 and returned to Baku in the evening.