Azerbaijani delegation attends 41st meeting of BSEC Council of Foreign Ministers in Athens

Jerusalem, 15 December, 2019 (TPS) -- By: AZERTAC

An Azerbaijani delegation led by Deputy Foreign Minister Mahmud Mammad-Guliyev has attended the 41st meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC) in Athens, Greece.

The meeting focused on issues of sectoral cooperation within the organization, activities of working groups, ways to increase effectiveness, as well as organizational issues, cooperation between BSEC and other countries and organizations.

The draft documents on economic cooperation that had been under review by the organization for a long time were also discussed at the meeting. However, due the non-constructive attitude of the Armenian side and its ignorance of norms of international law those documents couldn’t be adopted again and therefore aroused discontent among the member countries.

In his remarks, Deputy Foreign Minister Mahmud Mammad-Guliyev noted that Azerbaijan is interested in productive and project-oriented activity within the organization. He stressed the significance of the activities aimed at producing concrete results.

Mahmud Mammad-Guliyev emphasized that the protracted conflicts impeded the development of cooperation in the region, negatively affecting the cooperation within BSEC, and isolating Armenia, which has occupied Azerbaijan’s territories, from all regional projects.

Azerbaijan’s presidency in the organization under the motto “Boosting Trade through Connectivity” lasted from July 1 to December 31, 2018. Development of transport hubs in the BSEC region, improvement of regional cooperation in areas such as tourism, agriculture and communications were among the key priorities of Azerbaijan’s presidency.