Georgian Prime Minister met with President of Azerbaijan. At the face-to-face meeting, Irakli Garibashvili and Ilham Aliyev discussed the productive cooperation between the two countries across a variety of areas, also issues pertaining to regional security.

The conversation focused on the seminal Black Sea submarine electricity cable project connecting the Caucasus Region and Europe. Irakli Garibashvili and Ilham Aliyev discussed the dynamic of the project’s implementation and relevant plans for the future.

The key directions of the intensive trade and economic cooperation between Georgia and the Republic of Azerbaijan were also discussed.

Irakli Garibashvili and Ilham Aliyev spoke about the regional and global security environment and challenges. The importance of peace and stability in the region for ensuring economic development was underlined. Irakli Garibashvili assured Ilham Aliyev of Georgia’s commitment to continuing its contribution toward ensuring peace and stability in the region.

“Azerbaijan is not only our friend and neighbor, but also a very strong strategic partner, trade partner for many years. Together with you, we have implemented projects of historic importance, which have further connected our nations, made them even more interdependent, which will last for centuries. We have repeatedly mentioned the projects of historic importance that have been implemented and are working successfully. Georgia is a very reliable transit partner country for the implementation of these important projects. We are working on new initiatives, such as, for example, the Black Sea Submarind Electric Cable, in order to develop the so-called Green Corridor. Georgia and Azerbaijan have great potential to supply Europe with green, renewable energy, which is of course very important. It is promising, it is the future, and we, both countries, should invest more in this direction; and we talked about it today. Naturally, we also had a discussion about the current situation in the region. We also talked about the difficult situation in Ukraine witnessed due to the war. This naturally increases risks for countries. There has not been such a challenge in Europe since the end of World War II. Our main task, our main interest is to maintain peace and stability, which is the basis for greater prosperity for our peoples. It is our main task to have strong economic growth, to create more jobs, to have more prosperity for our people. In this part we are in complete agreement. We want to implement more projects that will further strengthen and connect our countries and our nations. I also want to say what Mr. President has already mentioned about the development of the Middle Corridor. We are working together, in a coordinated manner towards this end. Our wish is that all those barriers get removed over the years, in the near future, we should jointly develop infrastructure, be it ports, railways, etc. You may well be aware that we are going to start the construction of a new port this year, the construction of Anaklia port. Also, we will complete the railway expansion project in about a year. Active works are also underway in the direction of the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway. All this, of course, will help and increase cargo volumes in the direction of our region. These are the main topics we talked about”, - said Irakli Garibashvili.

“We talked about many important topics and agreements that have been reached and will allow us to carry out future activities. Of course, Georgia and Azerbaijan play a critically important role in ensuring energy security in Europe, and that role is growing every day. These friendly ties between our countries and cooperation in this direction are, of course, crucial for the energy security of Europe. Every year we increase the scale and volumes of natural gas supply to Europe. This year, Azerbaijan decided to supply 24,5 billion cubic meters to international markets. This figure is increasing and, according to our Memorandum of Understanding that we signed with the European Union last year, by 2027 we will deliver over 20 billion cubic meters of natural gas to Europe. This is our target and I hope to achieve it. Considering the current geopolitical environment, we see how important the role of both countries is in this direction. For many years an Azerbaijani company SOCAR has been successfully operating in Georgia, it has 11 000 km of pipeline in operation, serving 830 000 subscribers in Georgia. We will do further more towards this end in the energy sector. We have already started working in this direction. At the end of 2022 Azerbaijan, Georgia, Romania and Hungary signed the most important document and the first meeting of the Steering Committee was held in Baku in February. This is a large-scale project and for its successful implementation, joint efforts are needed from all 4 countries and, of course, the support of the EU, which has already given a great importance to this project. Transport is one of the important components in our cooperation. Everything is going according to plan, very successfully. Middle Corridor and Azerbaijan with Georgia, are very active in this corridor and cargo volumes will increase; we will take additional steps in this direction”, - added Ilham Aliyev.