Foreign

Home page

Foreign

President of Azerbaijan: â€œEnergy issues should not be used as political tool or blackmailâ€

27 January 2009 14:57 (UTC +04:00)

He said Azerbaijanâ€™s energy policy was very important for both Azerbaijan and whole region. â€œThe global energy projects are realized and new pipelines are constructed in the region. These pipelines create opportunities to transport the Caspian oil and gas to some countries. It is important, first of all, for the consumers because they suffer from the conflicts most of allâ€.
President Aliyev said diversification of the energy sources was important for the oil producers. â€œThere are rich gas fields in our country with about 2-3 trillion cubic meters of unexploited resources, which will meet our gas needs for many decades. We, of course, should work on certain programs and all these should be carried out in accordance with the market terms. It demands to establish relations with the transit and consumer countries. We are interested in how much gas resources we can sell. Other countries can also take advantage from this. Azerbaijan always supports the Nabucco project and we intend to support it henceforth. We expressed our support at the Baku meeting. I consider it is time to find our common interests when we have gathered here. We have to follow several goals. We have to be trustworthy supplier and producer because not only consumers are interested in why the gas supply does not reach its destinationâ€.
The President stated that Nabucco members should take all factors into account.
â€œAzerbaijan was not among gas exporting countries when the idea of Nabucco project was created. The situation has already been changed at present and Azerbaijan is not only known as transit country, but the country having potential gas reserves,â€ he added.
To him, all efforts should be made to improve cooperation with foreign partners.
â€œAs regards relations with Nabucco, we would like to participate in this cooperation. We are sure that joint projects with EU on energy sphere will strengthen our relations. We should cooperate in this field, because such kind of projects is a means to make the countries closer to each other. Energy issues should not be used as political tool or blackmail. Our countryâ€™s experience shows that partnership policy is resulted with better achievements than profit. I repeat once again that we support the project and we are ready to cooperate with European Union and transatlantic institutions. We want the project move forward,â€ he said.