Azerbaijan, Baku, April 8 / Trend /
Regional cooperation must be strengthened, and each country should determine the level of cooperation and integration itself, President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev said summing up the session of the World Economic Forum "Strategic Dialogue on the Future of the South Caucasus and Central Asia", which began in Baku on Monday.
"Without regional cooperation we would not have been able to export our hydrocarbons. Without regional cooperation we would not have been able to become a transit country for our neighbours and friends across the Caspian," President Aliyev said. "We need stability and we need to expand our economic and political ties, because we are interrelated. Not only because we've lived in one country for many decades, but because the development of our region, the region of Central Asia, Caucasus, successful development can be only through close cooperation."
President Aliyev said Azerbaijan has already done quite a lot in order to develop regional cooperation projects. "For instance as far as Azerbaijan is concerned, energy, transportation and relations in trade area helped us to develop," he underlined.
"There should not be a confrontation between integration and cooperation, if each country determines for itself the level of how much it wants to be integrated, and participate in various structures, and others would recognize its right, and we will have good progress," President Aliyev underscored.