“Azerbaijan’s relations vis-a-vis Europe should concentrate on creating future perspectives and overcoming current challenges,” said Azerbaijan’s Ambassador to Belgium Fuad Isgandarov as he gave an interview to “EurActiv” news portal.

The interview says that in such a difficult time for the EU, the government and the National Parliament of Azerbaijan, with more than a million refugees and over 2,000 perished citizens as a result of terrorism, has never used this or other problems to lecture, excessively criticize or downgrade the EU institutions. In fact, like in the aftermath of 9/11 tragedy, Azerbaijan, being traditionally a secular Muslim society, was one of the first countries which mobilised its moral, political and military will to fight against terrorism. We are ready to help our European friends now, as we did for many years.

“Our approach is totally different. We are going for the Southern Gas Corridor (SGC), more than 50% of the TANAP project [TANAP is the SGC pipeline section across Turkey has been constructed, and more than 50% of our trade turnover is with the EU. Business is going in the right direction. Hopefully, SGC will be realized in 2019-2020.”

“Probably. Azerbaijan is a more secure country to live than most European ones. In this situation, we demonstrate our full, real and clear support to antiterrorist activity of our Western partners. It is challenging for the young, secular but Muslim state, located in such complicated region of the world.”