BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 10. UK is our biggest investor and strategic partner in traditional and now, I am sure, will be in renewable sources of energy, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev said receiving credentials of the newly appointed Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland Fergus Auld, Trend reports.
"I am sure that during your stay in our country you will have an opportunity to discover Azerbaijan more and will contribute substantially to future development of our cooperation, including in the area which is not a traditional area of our cooperation to discover new areas of potential partnership. Because the traditional and main areas of our cooperation already demonstrated a great progress and big achievement, I mean energy which today becomes even more important than ever before not only for Azerbaijan but also for a broader region. But I think now we need to look beyond energy to see what we can do on trade, how to enhance mutual trade development, trade turnover, tourism, people-to-people-contacts. We have good, I think, already records in the area of education. And you know many Azerbaijanis studied and continue to study in UK. But also to bring some more dynamism and some framework for that cooperation. In general, we are very satisfied with the level of partnership. For many years UK and Azerbaijan demonstrate high level of political dialogue, respect of mutual interests and close cooperation in different areas. UK is our biggest investor and strategic partner in traditional and now, I am sure, will be in renewable sources of energy. And you know that we are close to making an important step in that direction. You are starting your activity in Azerbaijan in absolutely different environment here. Because after the resolution of Karabakh conflict situation in the region changed completely. We think this is now a window of opportunity to capitalize on positive dynamic on bringing long-lasting and sustainable peace to our region," the head of state said.