Minister: We plan to implement the EU-Azerbaijan Partnership Priorities document before this summer

"We plan to implement the EU-Azerbaijan Partnership Priorities document before this summer," Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov said.

Report informs that he spoke at the 16th meeting of the EU- Azerbaijan Cooperation Council in Brussels.

According to him, we don’t have only opportunities, but challenges as well.

"Therefore, we also launched a Security Dialogue recently. In so doing, we want to see how we can underpin politically our partnership through a shared vision on some if not all issues related to security, fight against terrorism and extremism. This, coupled with illegal migration, might be of a serious concern for all of us. Here, I would like to underline that a failure to eliminate consequences of the ongoing violation of the principles of international law, as well as misinterpretation and selective application of these principles in the context of the conflict resolution undermines rules-based European order. I believe that, if the EU is developing its neighbourhood policy and invests so much in it politically as well as financially when it comes to other countries in the region, there certainly must be a rules-based approach.

"Further, on EU-Azerbaijan Partnership Priorities, we have this short but comprehensive document, which indicates what is important to us collectively and what our partnership should target. It speaks about priorities. It is about focus. It now needs a discipline and implementation. There, I can say that Azerbaijan has a forward-looking approach. We shared with the EU our preliminary vision about how we see its implementation. We will share our text with you very soon, and we hope that we start a practical implementation before this summer. Priority-driven cooperation tailored to the economic potential and specific goals of each country would be more efficient in realization of the principles of differentiation, flexibility, focus and greater ownership. Such approach will positively impact our long-term relationship and would be coherent with a spirit of true differentiation," he said.