Azerbaijani and Ukrainian Presidents Ilham Aliyev and Victor Yanukovych attended the 4th session of the Presidential Council in Kiev after closed-door talks. Yanukovych emphasized that Ukraine valued friendship with Azerbaijan and thanked it for its support.
Rovshan Ibragimov, head of the section for analysis of foreign political affairs of the Azerbaijani Presidential Center for Strategic Studies, clarified that Ukraine was a strategic partner of Azerbaijan in politics and economics, a member and co-founder of the GUAM organization. He reminded that Azerbaijan had helped Ukraine with fuel during harvesting.
The expert noted that the problem of energy shipments to Ukraine was one of the key issues for talks. Exports of natural gas is especially topical for rapprochement of Ukraine and Europe, in the light of aggravating relations with Russia.Ibragimov reminded that Azerbaijan could export oil through the Odessa-Brody Pipeline and then to Gdansk and Plotsk. SOCAR had started forming a network of gasoline stations all over Ukraine, he added. The two states may also cooperate in industry, agriculture and the military industry.
Aliyev was awarded with the Order of Freedom and Yanukovych with the Heydar Aliyev Order. The talks were concluded by signing the protocol of the fourth session of the Azerbaijani-Ukrainian Presidential Council, an agreement between the Ukrainian Cabinet and the Azerbaijani government to cooperate in protection and quarantine of plants, a plan for consultations on bilateral and multilateral cooperation between the Azerbaijani and Ukrainian Foreign Ministries, a protocol between the Rivne Region (Ukraine) and the Qabala District of Azerbaijan to cooperate in the economic and socio-cultural fields and an agreement between the Institute for Culturology of the Ukrainian National Academy of Arts and the Science Center for Cultural Studies of the Azerbaijani Ministry for Culture and Tourism.
