Azerbaijan may join Russia-led trade bloc - minister

There is a fairly realistic prospect that Azerbaijan will join either the Eurasian Economic Community or the CIS Customs Union, which includes Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia at present, Russia’s Regional Development Minister Igor Slyuniayev said in an interview with Russian Business Gazette.

The statement came on the eve of Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s visit to Azerbaijan, ITAR-TASS reports.

"Eurasec is a strategic project - both economically and politically and that’s why Azerbaijan’s cooperation with either Eurasec or the Customs Union is quite a realistic prospect," Slyuniayev says. "I wouldn’t even exclude such course of events."

He recalls that Russian President Vladimir Putin had invited Azerbaijan, traditional and reliable partner of Russia during his visit to Baku last year.

Putin said that Russia and Azerbaijan were cooperating closely in the Caucasian and Caspian region, in the CIS, in leading international organizations, adding that this cooperation was traditionally based on friendship and mutual respect between the nations and states.

Slyuniayev also recalls the words of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev that bilateral cooperation is developing dynamically and successfully and it meets the aspirations of both countries and their peoples. 

Azerbaijan safeguards carefully all the positive tradition of the past linked to the Russian language and Russian culture, Aliyev believes.

"Large numbers of Azerbaijanis in Russia and Russians in Azerbaijan feel themselves as members of a untied family and we must keep this feeling up in every possible way," Slyuniayev says, expressing the hope that the 5th Russian-Azerbaijani inter-regional forum, which opens June 23 in the Azerbaijan town of Gabala, will work towards this end.

"A meeting of business partners has been scheduled. They will look into the prospects for a variety of Russian-Azerbaijani projects."

“A steady growth of trade is one more proof of durable ties between the two countries,” he says. “In 2013, it grew 4% versus in 2012 and totaled $ 3.5 billion.

Bakudaily.az