Vucic: There is much space for energy cooperation with Azerbaijan

BAKU - Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on Wednesday there was much space for Serbia-Azerbaijan cooperation in the energy sector.

At a press conference with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, Vucic said discussions were already underway about building and advancing power transmission systems in Serbia to enable the country to receive electricity from Azerbaijan via Romania and Hungary.

"We are already in discussions about how we can become consumers of that energy," Vucic added.

He said supplies of Azerbaijani natural gas via interconnectors with Bulgaria and North Macedonia had already been discussed as well.

"All that is important for us," Vucic noted.

He also said new fields of cooperation had been opened up in the defence industry.

He explained that the cooperation would involve joint activities and transfers of technology.

He said the defence industries of the two countries could jointly develop products also for third markets.

"We think we have great potential if we approach that together, as Serbia and Azerbaijan, and that is why we have already had two meetings in the past month. A Serbian delegation will make frequent visits to Azerbaijan, while an Azerbaijani delegation will come to Belgrade as early as in the next few days," he said.

He added that he had had a very fruitful discussion with the Azerbaijani minister of defence industry and people from the country's defence sector.

"We also learned a lot from Azerbaijan about the way an army operates and how it should be structured, and there are a lot of things we are ready to exchange. We, too, manufacture some good equipment and some arms and we are ready to together look into how we can modernise and advance all that together and how we can keep up with everyone else in the world while being self-sufficient," Vucic said.