TURKISH PRESIDENT PRAISES RELATIONS WITH AZERBAIJAN

Anatolia News Agency, Turkey
Nov 7 2007

Baku, 7 November: Turkish President Abdullah Gul said [on] Wednesday
[7 November] no developments should be expected regarding the
normalization of relations between Turkey and Armenia as long as
Armenia continued to carry its allegations on the incidents of 1915
to the parliaments of other countries for discussion.

Gul delivered a speech at the Azerbaijani parliament on the second
day of his visit to this country.

Commenting on the problematic relations of Armenia with Turkey and
Azerbaijan, Gul said, "The whole world should see that the main
reasons of the current problems are Armenia’s unfriendly attitude
towards Turkey and its invasion of the territory of Azerbaijan".

"I don’t think Turkey is responsible for the way things are (relations
with Armenia) at this point. I can’t say that we are pleased with
the situation," said President Gul.

During his speech, Gul said Turkey and Azerbaijan cooperated in
remarkable regional projects and added that there were other big
projects to be carried out by the two countries in the near future.

Gul emphasized that the relations between Turkey and Azerbaijan had a
rich texture in many areas like politics, economy, diplomacy, commerce,
education, culture and communications.

President Gul noted that what gave its unique structure to relations
between the two countries was the commonalities in language,
descendance and religion.

Gul regarded the relations between the two countries as brotherhood and
said the terms used to define international relations like "interests,
benefit and balance of power" failed to represent it.

"In brotherhood there are no interests, no enmities. We want the
existence of our nation to inspire confidence in Azeri Turks,"
said Gul.

President Gul praised the "sincere efforts" of Azerbaijan in enhancing
its democratic structure and raising the human rights standards for
its people.

Commenting on the pipeline projects that are carried out jointly by
Turkey, Azerbaijan and Georgia, Gul said these projects contributed
to peace and stability in the region and global energy security.

President Gul who pointed out that the Caspian Basin would transform
into the most important section of the East-West energy corridors once
the Trans-Caspian pipeline project is actualized between Azerbaijan
and Turkmenistan [sentence as received].