Speech by Ilham Aliyev at the 3rd Summit of Heads of Caspian States

Dear heads of state,

Dear guests, distinguished friends,

I greet you all wholeheartedly in Azerbaijan. Welcome to Azerbaijan!

Today’s meeting is a very remarkable event. This meeting has a crucial importance for the development of friendly, good neighborhood relations between our countries. Throughout the centuries, peoples of our countries lived and created together.

We are neighbors and united by friendship and friendly neighborhood ties. I am very pleased that today these ties are elevated to higher level.

Azerbaijan forged mutually beneficial, working and friendly relationship with neighbors and it gets stronger and stronger. The current meeting has a tremendous importance from the point of view of regional co-operation. I am confident that it will have outstanding results.

The Caspian Sea, which unites us is a sea of friendship and co-operation. I am confident that the Summit of Heads of State of Caspian countries will become an important step to ensure peace and security in the Caspian and deepen co-operation. A very active work is under way to define legal status of the Caspian Sea. Task force continues its work. I hope that practical results will be attained in this respect in future. To date, pending legal status of the Caspian did not impact on the friendly relations between us. Our relations are multifaceted. Obviously, we would like very much to see the soonest resolution of Caspian legal status, and we will continue our efforts in this direction.

Besides that, I should point out that for the time being, important steps have been taken between Azerbaijan and Russian, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, as well as Russia and Kazakhstan for sectoral division of the Caspian. Three countries have solved this issue between themselves. I hope that this excellent experience can serve as a basis in the future, and the current legal basis can play a positive role in defining the legal status of the Caspian.

The co-operation deepens in the field of transportation. Azerbaijan participates both in North-South and East-West transport corridor. Besides that, we create a modern transport infrastructure in the country. In this regard, construction of motorways, development of maritime transport, reconstruction of railway transport and construction of new railways get a priority meaning.

Recently, the construction of a new large Trade Port has started in Baku. Indeed, this Port will serve the interests of all Caspian countries. At the first stage, goods handling capacity of the Port will be 10 million tons. The last phase can enable to handle 25 million tons of goods via this Port. Thus, Azerbaijan would contribute to our common cause by constructing the Port.

Parallel to that, the construction of a new modern ship-building yard is launched in Baku. I do hope that its construction will be completed in near future and thus, a new sophisticated infrastructure will be created on the Caspian for solving goods transportation issues in any quantities. We are the active participants of both North-South and East-West corridors and we will continue to pay our efforts to unite transport systems.

At the same time, today, there are many rumors about energy resources of the Caspian. The Caspian disposes the richest natural resources.

All Caspian countries are abundant by energy resources. Our countries meet not only their own needs, but contribute very significantly to the world energy security. Oil and gas, produced in our countries have practically a decisive influence on world energy market. We try to unite our efforts. All of us are producers, and obviously, our interests coincide with the interests of consumers. We do not compete with each other in the field of energy resources. On the contrary, we co-operate successfully.

This co-operation serves all interests of our countries. Azerbaijan runs its multifaceted activities related to the transportation of energy resources. We strive to contribute to the energy security issues. We have created a modern infrastructure for delivery of oil and gas resources of Azerbaijan to worldwide markets by various routes. This infrastructure can be also presented to ensure interests of neighboring countries. It means that we are ready to offer our transit capabilities for neighbors.

Today, it is obvious that fostering of economic ties has a tremendous meaning for turning the Caspian into the sea of co-operation. Economic relations, existing between us are being strengthened in this field. It is natural to see some decline in trade turnover due to the crisis. But this is a temporary effect. I am confident that we will restore successes in all fields in the nearest future.

We implement large-scale programs in Azerbaijan to improve environmental status of the Caspian. I can say that this year is declared as the Year of Ecology in Azerbaijan and large-scale environmental measures are envisaged in this regard. In particular, cleaning of the part of the Caspian sea, polluted by waste waters and oil, and installation of modern sewerage system contribute to our common cause. Environmental issues had always a particular place at Summits. Of course, today, we will exchange views on this issue as well. To put it short, we are trying in Azerbaijan to bring our contribution to the improvement of environmental situation at the Caspian.

We work actively to increase security measures at the Caspian. The document that will be signed today will cover indeed these issues. The Caspian is a sea of peace, welfare and stability and it should remain so. We ensure security measures at the sea by our own resources. I think that the cooperation of Caspian countries in this field can be highly assessed. Being in close relationship both in bilateral and multilateral formats, our relevant public institutions pay their efforts to foster security measures at the Caspian.

Dear friends, I think that the cooperation of Caspian countries can be highly valued in general. I would like to reiterate that all of us are friendly countries, neighbors to each other and live in this region. We have common history. Our peoples are closely linked to each other. We are united both by history and current interests. I am sure that today’s Summit will mark a very significant contribution to developing not only the Caspian issues, but the full spectrum of relations. I greet you sincerely once again and wish successes to our Summit.