“Definitely, Italy is one of our closest partners not only in European continent, but globally. Our relations, I think now on the very high level and indicator to that is the fact that we signed the document on strategic partnership. Italy is one of the nine members of the EU with whom Azerbaijan signed a strategic partnership document. And there have been high-level visits of the presidents and other officials,” Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said in an interview with Italy's Il Sole 24 Ore newspaper on December 15, Report informs via Azertag.
“As you said, Italy for us is a main trade partner and now after the Trans-Adriatic pipeline is in operation Azerbaijan became an important supplier to Italy and the volume of Azerbaijani gas in Italian consumption is growing and will grow year after year. At the same time, as a friendly country, Italy was among the first countries which we invited to work on liberated territories. The first was Turkey, the second was Italy. And I can tell you that now there are a lot of projects which Italian companies are implementing there. We invited the Italian architects to renovate our historical monuments and mosques in Shusha and this is a very symbolic gesture. Because Shusha is a sacred place for us. It is the cultural capital of Azerbaijan and the religious site is sacred for everyone. So, it is a very high-level of trust. Just recently, when I was visiting Shusha, I met Italian representatives who demonstrated me how they are planning to continue. An Italian company is now in an active process of the construction of the Victory Museum in Baku.
It is another symbolic gesture, because we can imagine this historical victory. It means a lot to us. We invited Italian companies deliberately to demonstrate our partnership and knowing the high-level of performance, high-level of taste and friendly relations between us. I can name you many other construction projects in liberated territories and in other parts of Azerbaijan where Italian companies are very active. I can tell you that during the visit of President Mattarella to Azerbaijan we together inaugurated the petrochemical plant which was built by an Italian company. Now the same companies are actively working on reconstruction of our refinery. It is a multi billion project. It is industry, petrochemicals, construction, architecture, renovation, the broad range of issues. So, once again this is a demonstration of our friendship and our partnership,” Ilham Aliyev said.