Vucic: Agreements with Azerbaijan to take ties to new level

BELGRADE - The agreements signed by Serbia and Azerbaijan on Wednesday will take their cooperation and bilateral ties to a new level, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said after a meeting with Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Iliyev in Belgrade.

He added that they had discussed all important issues, including energy, since Azerbaijan is a superpower in production and exports of natural gas.

At a press conference with Aliyev, Vucic said he expected to pay a working visit to Baku in the next 20 days to continue discussions on several "extremely important" topics for Serbia, and added that he would be accompanied by several government ministers to deepen the strategic partnership with Azerbaijan through very concrete agreements.

He noted that the two countries had much in common and were firmly protecting their territorial integrity and helping each other in the international arena and international institutions while respecting the UN Charter and norms of international law based on the document.

"I am afraid that today there is little left of international law, and I learned a lot about that from Aliyev, and just a few dozen countries adhere to the order of international public law, because we believe that is the only possibility and the only option for the future," Vucic noted.

He said the seven bilateral agreements signed earlier in the day would take the Serbia-Azerbaijan cooperation and ties to a new level.

Vucic said the meeting with Aliyev had addressed all important topics, including energy, and noted that Azerbaijan would be exporting over 35 bln cubic m of natural gas in seven to ten years' time as opposed to the 22 bln cubic m of gas it was exporting today, with half of the quantity going to European countries.

"That is why we are working on setting up interconnectors between Serbia and Bulgaria to be able to buy significant quantities from our friends in Baku. We also discussed power transmission and we will speak with European partners about connecting, as this is about a cable running under the Black Sea that would ensure energy security to us," Vucic said, adding that the topic would be discussed with Romania or Hungary.

He said the energy needs of the Serbian economy and households were growing and that greater energy security was needed as a result.

Vucic said they had also talked about other major issues, such as fertiliser shortages and cooperation in military technology as well as advancement of cooperation in the international arena.