Azerbaijani, Turkmen leaders discuss strengthening bilateral ties

Turkmen President Serdar Berdimuhamedov met with his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev on Wednesday, on the sidelines of a trilateral meeting involving Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the Turkmen city of Awaza.

“Having discussed issues of Turkmen-Azerbaijan cooperation, interlocutors underlined the mutual interest of the sides in the strengthening of age-old good neighbourhood relations and further progressive development of mutually beneficial cooperation, which has entered its new stage,” the Turkmen state news agency Altyn Asyr said.

The statement added that the two leaders discussed the course of implementation of earlier agreements reached between the two countries, in addition to talks on expanding cooperation in energy security and the creation of joint transport infrastructures.

“Having noted that the fuel and energy complex was and remains to be the most important areas of mutually beneficial cooperation, the heads of the friendly country fully supported the proposal of the Turkmen side on the necessity of further development of partnership in these most important areas,” the report also said.

The two leaders underlined a January 2021 memorandum of understanding on the joint exploration, exploitation, and development of the Dostluk hydrocarbon field in the Caspian Sea in this regard.

“Along with that, importance of further expansion and strengthening of relations in education, science, culture, healthcare and other socially significant areas was also stressed,” it concluded.

The closed-door meeting came on the sidelines of the first summit between the leaders of Türkiye, Azerbaijan, and Turkmenistan in the western Turkmen city of Awaza.

Aliyev also held separate meetings with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, chairman of the People's Council of Turkmenistan, the upper house of the Turkmen parliament, on the sidelines of the summit.