Baku, March 11, AZERTAC

Following the ceremony of signing documents, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and President of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov have made press statements.

Statement by President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev

- Dear Gurbanguly Malikguliyevich,

Dear guests, ladies and gentlemen!

Dear Gurbanguly Malikguliyevich, let me once again warmly welcome you to Azerbaijan.

We are very pleased with your visit and are confident that the visit will serve to further strengthening of the friendly and fraternal ties between our countries and peoples. Our peoples have lived, worked, supported and helped each other for centuries. At all stages of the formation of our states as independent republics, we have always supported each other, and today this support is also felt both in the bilateral and in the multilateral format, as well as our cooperation within the framework of international structures. Taking this opportunity, I would like to congratulate you and the entire brotherly Turkmen people on the 25th anniversary of the international recognition of the neutrality of Turkmenistan. Over the years, Turkmenistan has come a long and glorious path of development, creation, a path that has opened up great prospects for the Turkmen people and won great respect for Turkmenistan in the world. The fact that Turkmenistan is recognized by the entire international community as a neutral country, and the course you are pursuing, fully meet the aspirations and interests of the Turkmen people, as well as your friends and partners. We, as your neighbors and good friends, always rejoice in your success. Having repeatedly visited Turkmenistan, I always see a very rapid and dynamic development of your country. I know that you seriously control all stages of the development of your state, including issues related to urban development. Last time I had the opportunity to get acquainted with very modern sports facilities. I would like to congratulate you on the successful hosting of the Asian Games. The hosting of such large-scale sports competitions requires not only modern infrastructure, but also the professionalism and skill of the organizers. Therefore, I would like to once again sincerely congratulate you on such a great international success.

And the way Ashgabat is being built and becoming prettier is visible to everyone who visits your beautiful capital – this reflects the strength and modernity of fraternal Turkmenistan today.

As for our bilateral relations, we have once again reviewed the broad agenda of our interaction, reaffirmed our commitment to the strategic development of our cooperation, and the documents that have been signed today supplement the already very broad legal base. During my official visit to Turkmenistan, more than 20 documents were signed, and today there are about 20 more. This is almost half of all documents between our countries. This suggests that in a year and a half we have come a long way in terms of strengthening the legal framework.

Among the signed documents, I would like to highlight the Joint Declaration of the heads of state, which reflects our intentions, our assessment of the situation in the world and in the region, and our aspirations for the future. I also believe that one of the important points of the Joint Declaration is the renewed support for the territorial integrity, inviolability of borders and each other's sovereignty, as well as conflict resolution based on the principles of international law and the principles of territorial integrity, inviolability of borders and sovereignty.

I am glad that a good process is underway in the trade and economic sphere and there is good momentum in commodity turnover. Today we spoke in detail about the transport and logistical sector, gave relevant instructions to relevant state bodies to intensify work in this direction, to strengthen coordination of efforts to enhance the transit and transport potential of our countries. Since both Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan have been attaching special importance to transport infrastructure, we practically went along a parallel course by modernizing this infrastructure. And today, our main ports operate in a coordinated and well-concerted, enabling the passage of growing cargo through our territories. We also provide our transit potential to other countries. Today, I believe, we have made an important decision to strengthen this potential. Additional measures will be taken to create infrastructure opportunities and conditions for increasing freight traffic. Due to close cooperation and good relations with our neighbors, we will naturally attract more shippers from neighboring states and, in essence, create a new transport corridor that extends thousands of kilometers. Thus, we will create favorable conditions for the further development of our countries and strengthen regional cooperation.

Of course, we also talked about issues related to the energy sector. Here, too, there are good results and long-standing cooperation. We talked about future steps in this direction. We noted the importance of humanitarian cooperation for our countries, taking into account the ethnic closeness of our peoples, the closeness of our languages and cultural commonness.

In other words, today's agenda has been quite extensive. In general, we have a very active dialogue. Last year, the presidents met both in Baku and in Ashgabat. The year before last, as I noted, my official visit was very successful. Once again, I want to express my gratitude for the hospitality of the brotherly Turkmen people and the President of Turkmenistan. And I am sure that the current official visit of the President of Turkmenistan will be another important step towards strengthening our ties.

I want to wish our brothers in Turkmenistan future development, success, peace and prosperity. Thank you!