BAKU, Azerbaijan, May 8. Bulgaria and Azerbaijan have been strategic partners since 2015, President Ilham Aliyev said in a joint press conference with President of Bulgaria Rumen Radev, Trend reports.
Statement by President Ilham Aliyev
- Dear Mr. President, my dear friend.
Dear ladies and gentlemen.
Dear guests.
Several important documents were signed during the visit of the President of the Republic of Bulgaria to Azerbaijan today. Among them, of course, I would like to mention the Joint Declaration on strengthening strategic partnership. Bulgaria and Azerbaijan have been strategic partners since 2015. Over the years, our relations have developed rapidly and successfully. This visit of the President of Bulgaria is another manifestation of this.
Our meetings with President Radev are regular in nature. Last year, both President Radev visited Azerbaijan and I visited Bulgaria. We also met at the Bulgarian-Serbian border last year. In other words, such an active political dialogue enables our relations to expand and deepen and our countries to achieve new results in all areas.
Of course, the wide-ranging Bulgarian-Azerbaijani relations were discussed today and ideas were exchanged about future steps. The turnover between our countries has increased several times. The main reason for this is, of course, cooperation in the energy sector. The current level and prospects for this cooperation are very reassuring. Suffice it to say that the exports of Azerbaijani gas to Bulgaria has been increasing year after year. Last year, 1 billion 250 million cubic meters of Azerbaijani gas was transported to the Bulgarian market. I can say for comparison that this figure was only 600 million cubic meters in 2022. Our calculations show that 1.5 billion cubic meters of Azerbaijani gas will be exported to Bulgaria by the end of this year. This is approximately 50 percent of Bulgaria's total gas consumption. In other words, in the language of the European Commission, Azerbaijan is expanding its activities as a pan-European gas supplier and does not spare its support in addressing the issues of energy security.
At the same time, Bulgaria has become an important gas transit country. Azerbaijani gas is currently exported from the territory of Bulgaria to other neighboring countries, and the number of these countries will certainly increase in the years ahead. So, this is a tangible result of our cooperation, logical fruition of our strong bilateral relations. Because our cooperation should be calculated for a concrete result. In other words, the main goal of this cooperation is to achieve better results, and we see this both in the growth of trade and in cooperation in the field of energy.
We also discussed another project today, and it is the green energy cable. As you may know, Azerbaijan is working closely with partner countries in this direction, including Bulgaria. We believe that the feasibility study, which will be ready in a few months, will be a good basis for starting this work. Azerbaijan will thus assert itself not only as an oil and gas supplier for the European space, but also as a supplier of green energy. The potential is quite extensive, and we will also talk about it at the COP29 conference at the end of this year. I have invited President Radev to Azerbaijan to participate in this event.
Another important direction is related to transport. This was also discussed. I have informed President Radev that modernization of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway had been completed a few days ago thanks to Azerbaijan's investment. Its throughput capacity has been increased several times. As an important segment of the Middle Corridor, this project, which was put forward on Azerbaijan’s initiative and its capacity has now been expanded, will of course play an important role. The transportation of larger volumes of cargo along the East-West corridor and back will further strengthen our relations.
In a nutshell, I think we can already see the results of today's visit. One of the results is that the strengthened version of our strategic partnership has been officially adopted and approved. We do not disagree on the issues I mentioned and a few others. Our goal is to deepen bilateral cooperation, enrich it with new content and make joint efforts as strategic partners.
Dear Mr. President, I welcome you again and wish you a pleasant visit.