“Turkmenistan this year has had the honour of marking the 30th anniversary of its status as a neutral state,” said Gurbanmammet Elyasov, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Turkmenistan to Azerbaijan, during an event titled Multifaceted Cooperation Between the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Republic of Turkmenistan: Achievements and Prospects, APA reports.
The ambassador highlighted key aspects of his country’s international cooperation strategy: “One of our core principles is to consistently strengthen relations with Azerbaijan. The ties between our countries continue to develop steadily in politics, economy, transport and logistics, and the oil and gas sectors. We highly value Azerbaijan’s support for Turkmenistan’s initiatives on international platforms. Azerbaijan is a brotherly country, a brotherly nation, and we are committed to using our full potential to enhance our partnership.”
He emphasised that the strengthening of Turkmenistan-Azerbaijan relations in various sectors owes much to the personal contributions of President Serdar Berdimuhamedov of Turkmenistan and President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan: “Our cooperation in the field of transport opens up great prospects not only for our two countries but also for our neighbours. It is essential to highlight the growing capacity of our ports, as compared to our other Caspian neighbours; we possess a significant potential for cargo transportation. This demonstrates our readiness to meet current challenges related to increasing east-west and west-east transit cargo flows between China and Europe.”
The diplomat noted that constructive exchanges of views are constantly held regarding the strengthening of cooperation, the prospects for bilateral relations, and the paths for their further development. He added that expert-level work is currently underway on preparing the feasibility study for the installation of a fibre-optic cable along the Caspian seabed between Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan.
The ambassador said that, overall, trade and economic relations between Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan hold great potential. He noted that even without taking into account the non-oil cooperation sector, the trade turnover between the two countries increases year by year, which can be considered an indicator of close economic cooperation.
