SHEVARDNADZE WILL LEAVE FOR BAKU

Azerbaijan’s President Heydar Aliev has officialy invited his Georgian colleague Eduard Shevardnadze to Baku for signing the intergovernmental agreement on natural gas export from the Caspian gas field Shakh Deniz. As “CNA” agency informs, last week in Switzerland the government delegations of both countries completed the last stage of the negotiations on the gas pipeline question. In President Aliev’s opinion, the constructing of the important strategically for Azerbaijan and many multinational corporations export gas pipeline through Georgia to Turkey has the same importance for Georgia. It is assumed that starting with 2003 Georgia will be able to buy from Azerbaijan about 1.5-2 billion cubic meters of gas. At the same time the supply of the blue fuel to Turkey must be about 5 billion cubic meters in average annual volume. These figures are stipulated in the Azerbajani-Turkish intergovernmental agreement on gas supply signed on 12, March 2001 in Ankara.