Apr 11, 2014

Iran and Azerbaijan have signed deals to increase their economic, cultural and environmental cooperation. The agreement was announced on the one-day visit to Tehran by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. He met with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as well as other Iranian officials and ministers.

The visit and the announcement were lauded by Iranian media, as Tehran and Baku relations were severely strained under former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

“The trip by Azerbaijan’s president to Tehran is an important step in the direction of expanding ties,” said Rouhani. “In the new administration, there is no obstacle to expanding ties between [our] friend and brother country of Azerbaijan.” Rouhani announced the formation of a joint economic commission between the two countries and called for an expansion of ties in the private sector.

According to the Islamic Republic News Agency, which operates under the Rouhani administration, Iran and Azerbaijan have signed an agreement to build a hydroelectric plant. They also signed three memoranda of understandings: one between the Ministries of Youth and Sports of Iran and Azerbaijan, one between Iran’s Interior Ministry and Azerbaijan’s Ministry for Natural Disasters, and between Iran’s Ministry of Roads and Urban Development and Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources.

Rouhani also addressed the dispute over the Caspian Sea. “The Caspian Sea belongs to all of us and we should all be able to use it within the framework of reason, fairness and previous order,” he said. Five nations border the Caspian shores: Iran, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Russia. It is the largest enclosed body of water and an important source of gas and oil, as well as fishing. Meetings between the five countries to resolve the issue have so far been unsuccessful.