BAKU, Azerbaijan, August 4. Azerbaijan has converted geographic limitations to opportunities thanks to the implemented initiatives, the country's Parliament Speaker Sahiba Gafarova said at the Inter-Parliamentary Forum held as part of the Third United Nations Conference on Landlocked Developing Countries in the town of Awaza in Turkmenistan, Trend reports.
According to her, initiatives taken by Azerbaijan help landlocked nations maintain regional cooperation and coordination, develop their ties, and increase their commerce.
The speaker said that Azerbaijan has invested billions of dollars over the past years in transport infrastructure, including the International Merchant Seaport of Alat and the construction of new motor roads and railways. As she articulated, positioned strategically along the Trans-Caspian Middle Corridor and the North-South Corridor, Azerbaijan has emerged as a pivotal nexus for transportation and logistics within the Eurasian landscape.
She remarked in her address that the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway line, the cornerstone of the Middle Corridor, proves the commitment of Azerbaijan to strengthening regional ties. The current ‘Digital Silk Way’ project, which is a web of fiber-optic cables laid across the Caspian seabed, as she noted, will promote digital infrastructure progress and digital security efforts.
She also unveiled another pivotal initiative that is currently being operationalized, specifically, the collaborative framework for green energy development and transmission among Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan.
The speaker said that Azerbaijan, which remains committed to the South-South cooperation concept, is sharing her experience in streamlining and modernizing customs operations, digitalization, and infrastructure development with the other landlocked countries, thus affording them an opportunity to overcome geographic isolation and partake of collective growth.
Gafarova added that Azerbaijan calls on the international community to propose more reliable and practicable support mechanisms for the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals by the landlocked countries.
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