Baku, Azerbaijan, June 1
By Anakhanum Hidayatova – Trend:
Within the framework and priorities of US national security and its ongoing threats, mainly from the “Islamic State” and other terrorist groups, the strategic cooperation between Washington and Baku is essential, fundamental and constantly growing, Peter Tase, a political analyst and international relations expert with the Milwaukee-based Marquette University, told Trend June 1.
According to Tase, although US President Donald Trump’s newly proposed budget to the State Department operations and its foreign-aid programs will experience enormous cuts, American diplomacy in the Caspian Region – especially the close partnership that exists between United States and Azerbaijan – will continue to flourish and strengthen in the next years.
The expert noted that the cooperation between Washington and Baku continues to have positive effects, as the South Caucasus region, and especially Azerbaijan, have an exceptional potential in the energy sector in addition to its strategic geographic location, topography, and close proximity to Russia, Iran, Kazakhstan and other Central Asian republics.
“It is certain that the US Government maintains a keen eye towards strengthening its areas of cooperation in the private sector and government-to-government partnership with Azerbaijan,” added Tase.
According to him, the current Government of President Ilham Aliyev has transformed and diversified the national economy of Azerbaijan, enabling this landlocked nation to reach admirable levels of economic growth and embrace every effort to eradicate poverty nationwide.
“European and US companies have established cooperation agreements with their Azerbaijani counterparts to further develop the oil and natural gas industries, while advocating for initiatives that are environmentally friendly,” noted the expert. “US companies and investors ought to take advantage of lucrative projects in the agricultural sector of Azerbaijan, and particularly the potential of production growth that the cotton industry is experiencing today.”
“US investors can embark in a profitable initiative that could establish a supply chain infrastructure focused on the cotton industry and other agricultural sub-sectors that have an exciting potential in the city of Sabirabad. Additionally, other areas of cooperation with an enormous potential in the national economy of Azerbaijan and beneficial to foreign corporations are shipbuilding and repair industry, commodity chemicals industry, food and dairy products industry, green engineering initiatives,” added the expert.
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