Azerbaijan ‘to become top investor in Turkey’

ANKARA

Azerbaijan is set to become the leading foreign investor in Turkey, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said on April 25, hosting his Azeri counterpart Ilham Aliyev in Ankara.

“We will soon launch TANAP,” Erdoğan said during a joint press conference, referring to the Trans Anatolian Natural Gas Project that will carry Caspian gas to Turkey before it reaches Europe.

This will be good news for both our nation and the world ahead of the [July 24] elections. Azerbaijan will therefore become the largest investor in Turkey,” he added.

For his part, Aliyev said the energy and transportation map of the Eurasia region is being “reshapen.”

“Such projects will increase our power, improve regional cooperation, and bring in sustainability,” he added.

TANAP will start to operate at the end of June, General Manager Saltuk Düzyol had said on April 18.

Aliyev said Turkey has invested some $12 billion into Azerbaijan and investments in the opposite direction stood at around $14 billion.

Turkey hopes the Karabakh issue between Azerbaijan and Armenia will be resolved urgently within the scope of U.N. resolutions, Erdoğan also said.

“Our biggest desire about the issue is that it will be resolved urgently within the scope of Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity, inviolability of its borders, and within the scope of U.N. resolutions,” he added.

The Khojaly Massacre is seen as one of the bloodiest and most controversial incidents of the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan for control of the now-occupied Upper Karabakh region.

On Feb. 26, 1992, on the heels of the Soviet Union’s dissolution, Armenian forces took over the town of Khojaly in Karabakh after battering it with heavy artillery and tanks, assisted by an infantry regiment.

The two-hour offensive killed 613 Azerbaijani citizens, including 116 women and 63 children, and critically injured 487 others, according to Azerbaijani figures.

In addition, 150 of the 1,275 Azerbaijanis that the Armenians captured during the massacre remain missing.