Azerbaijan, Baku, 19 August / Trend corr. S.Babayeva / Azerbaijani Communication and IT Ministry sees appropriate to sign a contract with a foreign company, which will stand as the operator of the project, to launch the AzerSat satellite, Gulam Abdullayev, the Senior Consultant in the Department to Coordinate State Companies under the Communication Ministry, said.
"Now, we are developing the contract's topic," Abdullayev said.
According to Abdullayev, there are several versions to sign the deal. The most appreciable version is to sign the deal with one foreign company, which will sign deals with contractors to launch satellite and construct land station.
"The talks have been held with companies from the United States, Turkey and Israel," Abdullayev said.
Ministry hopes the issue to be completed until the end of August.
The cost of the project AzerSat is $80-100mln. Satellite will be launched from Baykonur in Kazakhstan. Satellite will cover Europe and Asia - Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Iran. The Communication Ministry considers satellite to be launched in 2010. Satellite's exploitation term is 20 years.