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Italian Ambassador: â€œItaly and Azerbaijan are linked by deep friendship and co-operation relations and by a significant economic partnershipâ€ â€“ INTERVIEW

01 June 2011 11:07 (UTC +04:00)

Baku. Victoria Dementieva â€“ APA. Interview with Italian Ambassador to Azerbaijan Mario Baldi

- How do you estimate the bilateral relations between Azerbaijan and Italy? (political, cultural spheres)

- Italy and Azerbaijan are linked by deep friendship and co-operation relations and by a significant economic partnership. Since we established diplomatic relations, our two countries have created a growing number of opportunities for dialogue both at the bilateral and multilateral level. Cultural cooperation is also very intensive, as well as people-to-people contacts. Azerbaijani love Italy and Italian way of life and it is incredible how many similarities exist between our two countries and the two styles of life. It is the first thing that my family and I noticed after arriving to Baku one and half years ago from Moscow. Any corner I was looking at reminded me of something of Italy, especially of southern Italy, where I come from. The narrow streets of â€œIcheri Sheherâ€, the families walking on the â€œBulvarâ€ during the warm summer evenings, excited children playing football in sunny courtyards, mothers calling them or talking to each other from one balcony to the other. Old people moving their chairs to the streets in search of some fresh air, small, microscopic shops where â€“ however â€“ you can find anything, anytime. Even the way of driving in Baku â€“ let us say a little bit too â€œrandomâ€ â€“ reminded me of an ordinary day in an Italian town of the South. It is extraordinary.

- Azerbaijan-Italian cooperation in energy sphere. How is the negotiations on the realization of ITGI project is going on? What is the commodity turnover between our countries? Has the financial crisis impacted on it?

- Being a consumer country, we need to diversify our energy supplies in order to secure the preservation of our level of consumption and to get competitive prices. So far, we have mainly imported oil from Azerbaijan. It is thanks to oil - channeled through the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan - that Italy ranks first place as trade partner of Azerbaijan, since 40% of Azeri production goes to my country. To give you an idea of the huge dimension of this business, trade turnover between Italy and Azerbaijan amounted 5,3 billion of Euro in 2010 and 1,1 billion of Euro in the first two months of 2011. It is almost entirely azeri crude oil. Having said that, I recall that we are also interested in buying gas, which represents the future of energy market, being an environmental friendly resource. This is the reason why we observe closely the developments related to the second phase of Shah-Deniz project. An Italian-French company (Edison) has already put forward a formal proposal aimed at buying the entire production in order to channel it in a partially new pipeline, the Interconnection Turkey-Greece-Italy (ITGI). We thing that this is a viable, profitable project and we are looking forward to implementing it with the relevant Azerbaijani counterparts.
In a few words, energy is the key word when talking about relations between Italy and Azerbaijan, but allow me to add something very important. It is a different kind of â€œenergyâ€ that fuels the friendship between our two nations: an intangible energy that represents cultural respect and admiration, and creates the natural sympathy that binds Italy and Azerbaijan. These feelings do not depend neither on the oil prices, nor on the composition of the Governments or on the implementation of a single project. They represent the most solid and reliable foundation of our partnership and they are also the most important reason for optimism about the future relations between Italy and Azerbaijan.

- How many Italian companies (in what spheres mostly) take activity in Azerbaijan?

- There are three main companies operating in Azerbaijan with resident staff. CODEST, which is completing the construction of the â€œFour Seasonsâ€ Hotel in Baku; SAIPEM, an energy Company working with BP in the field of maintenance of off-shore platforms; TODINI building roads in the country. A part form these three, there is a great number of Small and Medium Size Companies operating in Azerbaijan in several fields: agriculture, food industry, alternative energy, interior design, fashion, machinery. Nevertheless, there is still a huge, unexploited potential. To give you an idea, Italyâ€™s exports to Azerbaijan was only 200 millions Euro in 2010. We are working with our Trade Commission to encourage more Italian business men to come to Baku, to establish contact with local companies and Ministries and to â€œdiscoverâ€ the good potential of the Azeri market. I remember a nice Russian way of saying: â€˜to see once is better than to hear one hundred timesâ€. This is the case of Azerbaijan, because it a safe, stable country with good infrastructures. This is the reason why I hope that more Italian delegations will visit this country, because they will feel encouraged to come back for starting business.

- Visits of Italian officials to Azerbaijan? Minister of Foreign Affairs of Italia planned to visit our country but it was postponed. Is he visiting Azerbaijan this year?

- June will be a very busy month. President Aliyev will be in Italy on the 2nd of June to celebrate with other Heads of States the 150th anniversary of the Italian Republic. Most probably, Minister of Industry and Energy, Natiq Aliyev will also be in Rome at the end of the month to chair the Intergovernmental Commission and to sign an important Agreement on Energy. Minister of Emergency Situations, Kamaladdin Heydarov has just come back from Italy, where he has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Italian counterpart. From Italian side, Minister of Foreign Affairs Franco Frattini intends to make this year the visit that was supposed to take place last September and was postponed. Furthermore, Prime Minister Berlusconi has not forgotten his promise to come to Bakuâ€¦

- What is official position of Italy on Nagorno-Karabakh conflict?

- We fully support the efforts of the OSCE Minsk Group aimed at facilitating the negotiations between to two sides. Our goal, as a country of the European Union, is to favor a negotiated, peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, respectful of the principles of International Law and of the relevant UN Security Council resolutions. We shall not â€œreinvent the wheelâ€. All elements of a possible agreement are already on the table. We should push further the process in order to reach a fair deal. Let me say something. At the G8 Summit in Deauville, Presidents Obama, Medvedev and Sarkozy stated the status quo cannot last forever. This is exactly the conclusion any person in good faith can reach after visiting one of the refuge camps in Azerbaijan. I was there and there are no words to describe the suffering of the people who had to leave their homes against their will. We should never forget this.