AZERI PRESID TO MOSCOW TO DISCUSS RELATIONS, REGIONAL ISSUES
by Sevindzh Abdullayeva, Viktor Shulman

ITAR-TASS News Agency, Russia
November 8, 2006 Wednesday 12:18 AM EST

Azerbaijani President Ilkham Aliyev will begin his three-day working
visit to Russia on Wednesday in order to discuss prospects for the
development of bilateral cooperation and regional problems. Aliyev
is expected to arrive in Moscow in the evening from Brussels where he
has held a series of talks with the European Union and NATO leadership.

Diplomatic sources in Baku believe that during the Azerbaijani head of
state’s meeting with the Russian leadership the sides will consider the
whole spectrum of bilateral relations. The talks’ participants are also
expected to discuss the situation in the Caucasus, ways of regional
conflict settlement, including the Nagorno Karabakh conflict. Official
Baku pins great hopes on Russia’s mediator role as one of the three
chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group in the Karabakh problem settlement. "We
see that the Russian government takes sincere efforts towards finding
a peaceful solution to the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict.

It is not ruled out that in the context of regional security the sides
will also consider the situation around the Iranian nuclear programme.

One of the probable subject matters of the talks will be natural gas
supplies from Russia to Azerbaijan in 2007. The Azerbaijani side
has recently repeatedly stated that it does not intend to refuse
from importing Russian gas in the coming years. It is also hoped in
Azerbaijan that gas prices offered by the Russian side will remain
the same or rise not considerably. In 2006, Azerbaijan purchased gas
from Russia at 110 US dollars per 1,000 cubic metres.

Analysts in Azerbaijan has noted the intensification of the political
dialogue and economic relations between the two countries in recent
years. Official Baku has also expressed satisfaction with the state
of bilateral cooperation the level of which is characterised here as
strategic partnership.

Aliyev said in a recent interview to foreign media that Russia and
Azerbaijan have managed to remove all unsettled problems in bilateral
relations. "Not a single problem has remained at present that could
spoil our relations. On the contrary, we have rather good achievements
in the development of cooperation in the economic, political and
cultural spheres," the Azerbaijani head of state pointed out.

Last year, trade turnover between the two countries for the first time
reached the level of one billion dollars and it is expected to grow
to 1.5 billion dollars by the end of the current year. The Year of
Azerbaijan in Russia in 2005 and Year of Russia in Azerbaijan in 2006
have become major events in the life of both countries that made a
noticeable contribution to the two neighbouring states’ rapprochement.