Croatia and Azerbaijan interested in closer cooperation

Zagreb - Cooperation between Croatia and Azerbaijan is developing well, but there is room for enhancing and making it more dynamic, Croatian Parliament Speaker Josip Leko said after meeting with his Azerbaijani counterpart Ogtay Asadov in Zagreb on Monday. 

"The political, economic, cultural and scientific cooperation has been improving steadily, but there is a lot of room for increasing it and making it more dynamic to both countries' benefit," Leko told reporters. 

Asadov said both countries were interested in strengthening their cooperation. Leko said cooperation was possible in shipbuilding and defence industry, and Asadov said that ferries built 20 years ago for Azerbaijan by the Rijeka-based Uljanik shipyard were still in use and that recently two more ferries had been commissioned from the same company. 

Leko said the agreement on cultural and scientific cooperation should be made more concrete so as to enable the introduction of Croatian language studies in Azerbaijan and of Azeri language studies in Croatia. 

Asadov said his country was satisfied with the level of relations and cooperation on all fronts. "Croatia respects Azerbaijan's integrity and resolution of international relations in line with international law," Leko said, for which Asadov thanked him. Asadov welcomed Croatia's membership of the EU and expressed hope that Croatia would be an advocate of Azerbaijan in the EU. He recalled that Azerbaijan was a reliable partner to the EU in the area of energy security.
 

Author: Hina