Azerbaijan and Turkey discuss bilateral relations

Azerbaijan and Turkey started preparing for the first ministerial meeting of the High-level Strategic Partnership Council, which aims at strengthening bilateral relations. The first meeting will be held next month, Trend reports.

Foreign ministers Ahmet Davutoglu and Elmar Mammadyarov are expected to meet in April as a preparation session for the top-level meeting between Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The date of the final meeting is not yet fixed, but it will most probably take place after the June 12 parliamentary elections in Turkey.

President Aliyev and Erdogan concluded an agreement on the establishment of the High-level Strategic Partnership Council in September.

"This important agreement actually is responding to the level of the relationship between the two countries and at the same time taking it one level up," Azerbaijani Deputy Foreign Minister Araz Azimov said on Friday "This agreement covers many issues of strategic importance and also takes the two countries to the level of mutual assistance and help in times of emergencies or in times of crisis".

"Within the structure, there shall be commissions dealing with different items of the agenda like military and security cooperation, economic developments, cultural ties and energy. It will work at the ministerial level, which will prepare proposals for consideration at the top level," Azimov added.

"It seems to me that Azerbaijan and Turkey have a unique relationship," Azimov stressed. "Those relationship puts them at a different level and is different from what Turkey may have with Syria or with any other country because again Azerbaijan and Turkey are building upon brotherly relations and commonalities," he added.

The existing mechanism between Turkey and Azerbaijan, the intergovernmental commission of economic affairs, will be maintained as part of the High-level Strategic Partnership Council.