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consortium, we can see that it could be hard for them to invest billions of dollars
from their budgets. There is a big need for international financial aid and bank cred-
its. Even when we were building the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, although BP
and other companies were a part of this project, 75 percent of funds spent for this
were loans from various banks. Today, we see promising steps concerning financial
package. Another important issue is a strong coordination among all, producer, con-
sumer and transit countries. That is why, I think if all these steps are taken, then the
project will have a good future.
I partially answered Your question concerning the second phase of the “Shah-
daniz” deposit. There is a delay with this, but it is not our fault. It is due to not solv-
ing the transit issue. We lost at least two years connected with the second phase of
the “Shahdaniz” deposit. “Shahdaniz” gas is very needed in Europe.
Recalling the issue of gas, I want to say that we started this process and built
pipelines. We built the pipelines to Turkey and now, gas is transported to Greece
via that pipeline. We don`t lack markets and there are many markets around us. A
neighbor country offered us that we may sell him gas as much as we want. That is
why those, who hinder this project intentinally or unintentionally, have to take it
into consideration.
Moderator: Thank you very much. Mr.President, you specially pointed out the
Eastern partnership here. You want cooperation with the EU, and the EU wants this
as well. We`d like to know what prospects there are for you in this sphere.
Question: Mr.President, we`d like to know about plans of your government on
ecological situation in deposits where oil was produced offshore during the soviet
period or even before. What steps are being taken by your government to clean
those sites from pollution?
Question (a reporter from Jane`s Defence review): Naturally, negotiations be-
tween Azerbaijan and Armenia on Nagorno-Karbakah conflict is a positive case.
But we know that Armenia directs a big part of its gross domestic product to mili-
tary spending. Armenia intends to be more powerful militarily. I have two ques-
tions to you: Don`t such steps leave confidence-building measures between the two
countries under question and complicate peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Kara-
bakh conflict? Second question, what does Azerbaijan do in response to such steps
by Armenia?
Ilham Aliyev: We are going to have a meeting in Prague on Eastern Partnership.
Naturally, we have some expectations. Perhaps, it would be hard to say what we
expect. But the important thing is that there are precise elements in the program of
“Eastern Partnership” that are beneficial both for the EU and Azerbaijan.
At the intial stage, the European Neighborhood Policy was launched and we
undertood that it was a good step. It was an indicator of the importance attached to
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the region. But now, we expect more from the program of “Eastern Partnership”.
We want easy access to Europe and some education programs of it. In general, our
goal is to gain access to the advanced expertise of Europe, make various spheres
of our life closer to the European standarts and build a prosperious and sustainable
country for the future.
As regards the protection of environment, we have to make efforts in this di-
rection. Unfortunately, during the Soviet Union, even in the Russian empire, our
enviroenment has been seriously polluted as a result of exploration of oil and gas
deposits. We had only polluted territories, rotten infrastructure and drop of oil pro-
duction in 1991, as an indepenedent nation. Azerbaijan has been a country that
produced 50-70 percent of the world oil. In 1990s, we had to start everything from
the beginning. Foreign companies were interested in investing on oil production
and exploration of oil fields. But the environment was such an issue that only we
had to deal with that. Our appeals to the international financial institutions for this
issue were left unanswered. Only after saving some allowance, we started to invest.
We launched a big program for protection of environment. We have aready cleaned
the most pulluted territories around Baku and set up parks in those sites. In order to
get rid of the heritage of the past and make all polluted areas fertile, we are going to
spend huge financial resources.
As regards defence spending of Armenia, you are quite right. It is probably the
highest figure in the region by the GDP of the country. If you look at the figures,
you may see that our economic growth lets us invest more on military. Sometimes
international organizations criticize us in militarizing the region. This is merely our
response to the occupation. I want to say you a simple figure. As I know, the budget
of Armenia is 2 billions dollars. And military expences of Azerbaijan is 2 billion
dollars. In other world, the military spending of Azerbaijan is equal to the whole
budget of Armenia. We can increase our military spending as much as we want,
but they as much as they can. This is a big difference. For this reason, they must be
responsible, put an end to occupation and not make us take other steps.
Moderator: Other questions.
Question: Mr.President, thank you for the interesting speech. I represent the
entity of the EU that manages civil crisises. From 1990, I visit Azerbaijan and met
interesting people there, spoke to them and examined the issues of armament in the
region. We`d like to know your ideas namely in those matters. But at the same time,
isn`t it possible for the three Caucasian nations to take their fates in their own hands
with the intitative of “Caucasian community”, and come to some conclusion by sit-
ting together without Russia or other parties, including the mediation of the Minsk
Group? In my opinion, establishment of the “Caucasian community” group on the
settlement of the conflicts and energy issues would meet interests of Azerbaijan. In