Elchin Amirbayov: Azerbaijan considers China as its strategic partner

Azerbaijan considers China as its strategic partner, Representative of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan for Special Assignments Elchin Amirbayov said in an interview with China's Fenix TV.

According to Report, commenting on the bilateral relations between the two countries, Amirbayov stressed Azerbaijan's desire to deepen and strengthen the political dialogue with China.

"We think that we have an excellent quality of the high level of dialogue because Xi and President Aliyev have developed excellent bilateral relations; they have met several times and, of course, it has influenced the quality of this relationship," Amirbayov said.

He noted that China's role in international relations is very important as the country is an outstanding member of the UN Security Council and a friendly country for Azerbaijan.

Last year marked 30 years since the establishment of diplomatic relations between Azerbaijan and China, Amirbayov said.

"And, of course, it is not a coincidence that our leaders have met in Samarkand [in September 2022]. And I think that today's very high quality of political dialogue between our two nations is due to the personal quality of relationship between our leaders. They have, of course, a very strong chemistry on a number of issues not only related to bilateral issues but also issues which pertain to international agenda."

According to Amirbayov, the leaders of the two countries agreed that it is necessary to do more to diversity economic and trade relations and also agreed to maintain regular contacts at the level of leaders, members of government, parliaments.

"We would be very happy if China and Chinese people would consider Azerbaijan as a new attractive tourist destination, so they agreed that there should be a direct airlink restored quite soon between our two nations so that we can have people-to-people contacts," he said.

Amirbayov also commented on the role of the One Road, One Belt initiative.

"Azerbaijan is known as a traditional provider of energy, oil and gas and you know that Azerbaijan has been playing a very important role in ensuring the energy security, for example, of the European continent," he said.

"I think that both leaders have agreed that we can do more in order to benefit from this initiative that was launched ten years ago by China - One Belt, One Road initiative," he said.

Amirbayov noted that because of its geographic location, Azerbaijan has played its role of a linkage between East and West and it has been very active in making sure that the Trans-Caspian international transport corridor is functioning and also built the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railroad which unites the Caspian Sea to the Black Sea.

According to him, this infrastructure could be very much used to implement the so-called Middle Corridor and which could be harmonized with the One Belt, One Road initiative which Azerbaijan fully supports.