STATEMENT BY PRESIDENT OF UKRAINE VIKTOR YUSCHENKO

AzerTag, Azerbaijan
Sept 8 2006

Esteemed Ilham Heydarovich!

Esteemed Azerbaijani friends, ladies and gentlemen

First of all, I would like to thank the President for the invitation.

I am satisfied with the talks we have had in the spirit of traditional
friendship. The subject-matter was wide-ranging – we touched on the
issues concerning various aspects of our relations including political,
economic, humanitarian, defense and foreign policy ones. Besides,
we discussed our military-technical cooperation, and realization of
a number of energy projects.

I would like to mention that today Ukraine has reached the stage of
political stability. Political forces that that were involved in the
parliamentary elections have passed through the difficult path towards
forming parliament’s majority, forming the government, forming major
view on nationwide values, integration vector and attitude to the
key issues that has bothered the nation for many years.

It is with great satisfaction that I want to say that today Ukraine
is on the stage of political stabilization. It is very important from
the standpoint of the issues we have discussed to understand economic
prospects of their realization.

Evaluating the today’s Ukrainian market, macroeconomic culture and
other indicators, I would like to say that our indicators we have are
may be unique for the Eastern Europe. Our GDP’s growth rate is 7.7%.

All the branches of the economy tend to grow. None of our branches
is experiencing depression, slowdown or crisis.

Today, the country has the least, over the past 15 years of
independence, level of unemployment measuring 7.2%. We have the
highest indicator of per year foreign investments, which measures $7.4
billion. The dynamics of our budget’s forming is very good with 53%
growth in budget receipts last year. This year, this growth makes
up 18%. We have managed to tackle greater part of the social and
humanitarian issues that we failed to do for many years.

I consider it as a good basis for development of multilateral and
bilateral relations with Ukraine. Ukraine is a promising country. I am
convinced that Ukraine has many opportunities for the mutual interests
to be satisfied. That is why it was so important to us to discuss a
number of issues of traditional significance for our relations. The
first group of issues constitutes cooperation in energy sphere. There
are three directions in energy sphere, which Ukraine is interested
in today. The first is forming joint structures with potential
Azerbaijani companies to deal in both markets with extraction,
exploration, processing and sale of oil products. Such readiness
have been expressed by Ukrainian side, and officially submitted to
the Azerbaijani colleagues.

We consider this as the first stage of them mutual penetration
to markets and development of mutual potentials. The second step
is continuation of the transportation of the Azeri and Kazakh oil
through Odessa-Brody-European market route. The project is currently
working. Today, the Caspian and Black Sea region is already making new
offers concerning crude oil that easily agrees with realization of
the Odessa-Brody project. The third step is forming joint positions
on such important issue as supply of gas, practically, though the
same route – the Caspian region-Ukraine-European Union.

We are very interested in continuation and development of cooperation
in aviation. Today, Ukraine can present seven types of aircrafts,
which have been tasted, and meet the highest safety requirement and
economic characteristics of the contemporary aviation market.

We believe here is our perspective. Our offer today is that we have to
study this issue on the highest possible level, highlight key points
and continue our work.

We have paid great attention to the activity of GUAM, we have also
focused on the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, concerning
which Ukraine, as before, use all available opportunities to help in
resolution of this conflict. We are ready to be a party to play the
part, which could be most acceptable for the conflict sides.

We talked about providing vital conditions for national minorities.

It pleases me much, as the President, that the Azerbaijani community
of Ukraine feels fine. If there are problems we have not yet solved,
we are ready to do so at a highest level.

Frankly speaking, our negotiations were very easy because, on one
hand, our relations are historically and traditionally good, and
have been formed and enshrined in the two peoples at both conscious
and subconscious level. On the other one, I think the policy of the
last years is the policy, which have demonstrated careful attitude
to national interests of the countries. Ukraine is ready to continue
this policy.

We are very pleased with the last years’ dynamics of our trade
relations: 37% growth last year, and nearly 30% this year. It proves
the effectiveness of the mechanism of organization of the trade
relations between the two countries in the framework of GUAM. The free
trade zone produces its regular results. However, we were ready to sit
down at the negotiating table to tackle the problems if they exist and
are worthy of attention of the working commissions or the Presidents.

No matter do these issues concern tariff policy or insurance, something
else, we realize that these relations need to be perfected.

So, both sides agreed, after all, to raise the status of our relations
and create a new constitutional mechanism in the form of the Council
of the Presidents of Azerbaijan and Ukraine. In the framework of the
Council, a strategic plan will be developed to cover the most important
aspects of the bilateral relations. Relevant orders have been given
today by the Presidents. I am convinced that our relations are not
only mutually beneficial but also very promising. So, I thank you,
Ilham Heydarovich, for the atmosphere our talks, and those of the
two government teams were held.

Thank you.