Azerbaijan, Baku /corr. Trend E.Huseynov / Trend's exclusive interview with the President of Tajikistan, Emomali Rahmanov, on the eve of his visit to Azerbaijan on 13-14 August
- How do you characterize the relations between Azerbaijan and Tajikistan? What are the key priorities of cooperation between the two countries?
- Our peoples have ancient traditions of cooperation over the centuries. An obvious example of this may be the fact that the immortal creative works of the great son of the Azeri people, and the classic purveyor of Persian-Tajik literature, Nizami, have been and continuing stimulating our poets and scientists with their uniqueness. We have always considered him equal to Rudaki, Saadi, Khafiz, and Khayyam.
Our recent general history also fully testifies to the mutual respect and sympathy which our peoples demonstrate to each other. Currently, we are trying to establish our relations on the basis of respect for the sovereignty and interests of each other as independent states in order to further enrich the steady fundament established over centuries. Our relations are developing. The sides are supporting friendly relations both in a bilateral manner and within international and regional organizations. The level of mutual trade is increasing year by year. In addition, I say that over the first years of our countries' independence, the intensity of our relations were away from the demands of our dynamic time. It is explained through several factors linked with the difficulties in establishing our states and resolving urgent political and social economic problems.
The repeat moment in out relations was the autumn visit of the President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, to Kazakhstan, which provided an impulse for the development of cooperation in all directions. In Dushanbe, we signed a mainframe Inter-Governmental Agreement on friendship and cooperation of the two countries.
- What urgent issues will be considered during your official visit to Azerbaijan?
- In my opinion, the urgent issues we are facing are regarding promoting bilateral cooperation. The development of the agreement-legal base is very important for it. Within a short time after Ilham Aliyev's visit to Azerbaijan, the experts of the two countries have devised a package comprising of tens of Inter-Governmental and inter-departmental agreements which envisage enriching the Agreement on friendship and cooperation and developing concrete mechanisms of cooperation in key directions. These agreements include free trade, taxation, communications, education, science and technology, and aviation.
In addition, we are going to discuss with our Azerbaijani colleagues the ways and means of intensifying bilateral relations in various spheres like political, economic and cultural-humanitarian fields. For this purpose, we are forming a relevant mechanism in form of the Inter-Governmental Commission which will regularly come together and assist in enhancing relations between State bodies, business people, scientific and creative organizations, and educational institutions. The important directions in the future activities of the organization should be studying the possibilities of re-establishing formerly existing relations which have currently been inactive due to several reasons.
I am sure that the relations between Tajikistan and Azerbaijan have good development prospects and we look at them with optimism. From our side, we are going to make all necessary efforts to practically realize the existing rich potential in the interests of current and future generations of our peoples.
- How fully is the potential of bilateral cooperation used with regards to the economy? How do you see the possibility of increasing the amount of the trade?
- Firstly, it needs to be noted that Tajikistan has dynamic commercial and economic relations only with Azerbaijan amongst the South Caucasus countries. The specific weight of the trade operations with Azerbaijan makes up 10.9% in amount of Tajikistan's trade turnover with the CIS countries and 4.5% in amount of general foreign trade. This figure is significant to us.
The analysis of the dynamics of trade between the two countries shows that the amount of the export-import operations over the recent five years has possessed growth tendencies. The trade turnover between Azerbaijan and Tajikistan increased from $42mln in 2002 to $140mln in 2006. In addition, the structure of the mutual trade is in need of balancing and optimizing. The advantage for Tajikistan in the trade relations with Azerbaijan is the import of raw materials for the aluminum industry of the country, which last year amounted to $136.2mln or 98.5% of gross import.
In this situation, changing the conjecture of the ammonium market may significantly affect these figures. Therefore, the issue of more fully using the potential of Tajikistani-Azerbaijani cooperation remains actual. It needs to be mentioned.
In my opinion, the perspective cooperation spheres are energy, production and processing of useful fossil and agricultural products, transport, communications, textile and food industry, and other directions where we possess large and potential production capacities. Taking into consideration the high economic development indicators of Azerbaijan, we also hope for the flow of the Azerbaijani investments into production-economic projects in Tajikistan.
- Azerbaijan began to play an important role in ensuring energy security. How may this factor serve as stimulus for the further cooperation of Tajikistan and Azerbaijan?
- Really, providing of energy security, as on a global scale, within the framework of separately taken countries is, certainly, an actual task. Therefore, presently, all countries seek their own ways of providing their own energy security. With this aim, we are implementing a range of joint projects on development of large and small hydro-power engineering, as well as on increasing the capacity of enterprises of coal, gas, and oil industries. The Tajikistan Republic will be able to provide its own electric energy independence through the use of renewal resources of energy, and will begin supplying large volumes of energy to neighbouring countries in the near future. At the same time, we should note that production of energy in Tajikistan is an effective, reliable, and ecologically-clean production. Oil and gas is necessary to completely satisfy the demands of our economy and energy sector. However, our country cannot completely provide for itself these raw materials and products. Therefore, taking into consideration that Azerbaijan has developed an oil producing and oil refining industry, it has good experience in exploring, producing, and refining fuel resources, and it will be expedient, therefore, to develop our cooperation in these directions. It can be implemented by participation of specialists and investments of Azerbaijan in exploring, producing, and refining oil and gas resources within the territory of Tajikistan. We are also interested in the supply of oil and oil products from Azerbaijan. I believe that the formation and strengthening of cooperation in the fuel-energy sphere and in other directions of economic development will serve as a base for more cooperation between Tajikistan and Azerbaijan.
- What is the official position of Dushanbe regarding the issue on regulating the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, particularly, regarding the support of the territorial integrity of the Azerbaijan Republic?
- As a country, which has felt all the difficulties of war at home, we adhere to the position of a peaceful settlement of all existing conflicts, including the Armenian-Azerbaijan conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh. There is no an alternative negotiations in resolving the conflict, and both sides can see it. Establishment of the institute of Co-Chairmen of the OSCE's Minsk Group caused intensification of the negotiation process, which is more remarkable in 2007. The negotiations involved not only Foreign Ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia. In June, the Presidents of the two countries met in St. Petersburg which must provide an impetus to the negotiations.
The latest statements of the Minsk Group give cause for optimism concerning prospects of the negotiation process, although, I realize, how serious the issue is.
However, we are sure, that peace and stability will be provided in the South Caucasus regarding the interests of all nations, residing in this important region of world, and for progress and development.
- Dushanbe will host the heads of the CIS countries at the beginning of October. How do you see the prospects reformation and general future of the CIS?
- The heads of the CIS member-countries will come to our country at the beginning of October 2007 for the first time. We are preparing for this event.
The plan of work of the Council of heads of the countries will be continued in the substantial plan, including reformation of the CIS. A lot of discussions have been held regarding this issue.
Reformation of the CIS has been ripening for a long time. Since establishing, the CIS has practically not seen any change. Most tasks, formed at the initial stage and marked in constituent documents, have not yet been implemented.
Certainly, we cannot deny the positive role of the CIS, through which most difficult problems, linking with collapse of the Soviet Union and establishing of independent countries, were settled by a civilized way.
However, life goes on and the issue on increasing the CIS' efficiency is becoming more real in character. We consider that the CIS has a rich potential for interaction and do not doubt the necessity to remain part of a community as an integral mechanism.
We believe that the CIS has not exhausted its potential and after good consideration we can give it new impetus for adapting and upgrading conditions.
Today, it is time to define key tasks, the implementation of which requires focusing efforts to resolve the issues. We wish to move further with this key to develop the community. I wish to express confidence that together, with our colleagues, we will manage the challenge.