THE AZERBAIJAN-TURKEY-US RELATIONSHIP AND ITS IMPORTANCE FOR EURASIA
On December 10, 2007, the Washington D.C. hosted a conference on “The Azerbaijan – Turkey – US Relationship and its importance to Eurasia” organized by the Azerbaijan-Turkey Business Association (ATIB), Hudson Institute’s Center for Eurasian Policy (CEP), and the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute (CACI) at Johns Hopkins University-SAIS. Being a continuation of ATIB’s mission to foster good relations first between Turkey and Azerbaijan, and then among Turkey, Azerbaijan, and other countries participants, mostly policymakers and analysts, were discussing the challenges and opportunities for their three countries in Eurasia. It is noteworthy that similar conference was organized by ATIB in Moscow in October to examine the Azerbaijan-Turkey- Russia trilateral relationship in Eurasia. The Washington, DC conference brought together representatives from the government, economic, academic, and policy spheres of Azerbaijan, Turkey, and the United States in an effort to define the goals of each state in the strategically important Eurasian region—and how they can work together to achieve them. In addition, Turkish President Abdullah Gül and former President of Turkey Süleyman Demirel have addressed their messages to conference participants. The conference agenda included large scope of issues aimed to identify the opportunities and obstacles for trilateral cooperation among US, Azerbaijan and Turkey. Although the primary concern of all participants was cooperation in Energy projects, variety of other topics such as Economy and Integration, Armenia, Iran, SCO and NATO were discussed as well.
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