OUTCOMES OF THE 6TH SUMMIT OF HEADS OF TURKIC STATES
President Heydar Aliyev of Azerbaijan has termed successful the results of the 6th Summit of Heads of Turkic States held in Baku. At the concluding press conference invited on April 8 he noted that the main goal of the summit was to reckon up completed work and schedule the plans for future. In addition, the holding of such the measurement once again confirms the fact of existence of Turkic states’ unity.
Heydar Aliyev has noted the special role of the President Suleyman Demirel of Turkey in setting up the organization of Turkic states. "We, the rulers of Turkic states, express our thanks to him for that", President Aliyev said.
Closing the summit, its participants have signed a resulting document – the Baku Declaration. The ruler of Azerbaijan informed that a decision had been made on establishment of Standing Secretariat of Turkic States in Istanbul. "This body will be engaged in preparation of next summits and documents", he noted. President Aliyev has also informed that summit of Turkic states would be held next year in Istanbul.
The problems of transporting energy recourses from the Caspian region have been in the center of attention during conversation between the heads of Turkic states and journalists. In reply to the question on prospects of bringing the Trans-Caspian gas pipeline online, Heydar Aliyev has said that Azerbaijan would participate in the project. Moreover, he has noted that after discovery of "Shah-Deniz" field in the Azerbaijan sector of the Caspian Sea, Baku considers an issue on transporting gas from this field through already existing gas pipeline to Georgia and then to Turkey. "We consider this project as promising and have an intention of achieving its realization", he said.
In his turn, continuing this theme President Suleyman Demirel has underlined that Turkey is interested in putting into effect all projects through which it would be able to import gas. "Within nearest years Turkey will increase volumes of gas purchasing that presently amounts to 10bn cubic meters a year. In future we are intended to bring the import to 50bn cubic meters, and then – to 85bn cubic meters. This volume includes 30bn cubic meters, which Turkey will get from Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan through the Trans-Caspian gas pipeline. However, we are ready to purchase all gas produced and transported by Azerbaijan from "Shah-Deniz" field. In addition, we will also buy 16bn cubic meters of gas through "Blue Stream" pipeline from Russia. The Turkish market is so huge that the salespeople would not compete with each other", President Demirel said.
In reply to a question on Kazakhstan’s relation to the Baku-Ceyhan oil pipeline project and a readiness of transporting own oil by it, President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan has said that this problem "has been constantly in the center of our attention". At the same time, in the near future Kazakhstan will start transporting own oil within the framework of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) from the fields in the northern portion of the Caspian Sea towards Black Sea. "The capacity of the pipeline will be 48m tons out of which 20% will be owned by Kazakhstan. However, we are going to bring the oil export to 100m tons of oil a year and a question of exporting our oil through Baku-Ceyhan will become a reality", President Nazarbayev has told. Presently, an exploration drilling on the Kazakhstanian shelf of the Caspian Sea was in progress and we pined our hopes on discovering a field similar to the Tenghiz field with huge oil reserves, the President noted.
THE BAKU DECLARATION APPROVED BY THE HEADS OF TURCKIC STATES
- Profit and opportuneness of the Baku top-level meeting has been noted with satisfaction, a necessity of further development and deepening multilateral and bilateral cooperation in various spheres, as well as, close collaboration within the framework of international organizations was underlined.
- Adherence to the principles of democracy, human rights observation, market economy development was ratified
- It was recognized that restoration of the Historical Great Silk Way would play an important role in development of the region’s economic potential
- Importance of development and production of rich natural recourses in the region, first of all, of oil and gas, their transportation and establishment and operation of Eurasian transport corridor were underlined
- Importance was confirmed and necessity was expressed on intensifying the activity of providing entrance to the world market for the hydrocarbon recourses of the Caspian region.
- Invoked for undertaking immediate international-level actions on stabilization of the environment in the region of the states participating in the summit
- Importance of deepening relations in the spheres of science, culture, art, education and informational exchange, etc. was confirmed
- Adherence to openness and broad interaction in favour of peace, stability and security in the regional and global aspects, to peace settlement of conflicts was confirmed, as well as, readiness to assist to effectiveness increase in activity of the UNO, OSCE and other international organizations was expressed.
- Any expression of aggression and miniaturization growth in the regions, conflicts leading to tension escalation, rise in number of refugees, aggravating humanitarian situation and posing a threat to security of the states were condemned
- Expressing the adherence to the resolutions passed by the UN Security Council on the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict, the rulers of the states have again confirmed their support to the peace settlement of the conflict on the base of three principles of the Lisbon OSCE Summit
- Resoluteness in undertaking coordinated actions against drug business, international terrorism, religious extremism, separatism and informational exchange in these spheres was confirmed
The heads of the states have taken a decision that next top-level meeting would be held in April 2001 in Istanbul.