Azeri President to Join Gas Summit in Tehran
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – The Republic of Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev plans to take part in the 3rd Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF), due to be held in the Iranian capital of Tehran on Monday.
Azerbaijan, which is not a member state of the GECF, plans to participate in the forum as a guest country.
The number of presidents attending the November 23 international event will hence rise to nine.
Speaking to reporters back on Tuesday, Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said the gas summit would be held with the presidents of Iran, Bolivia, Russia, Equatorial Guinea, Nigeria, Venezuela, Iraq, and Turkmenistan as well as Algeria’s prime minister in attendance.
“The presence of this number of heads of states in such a meeting is unprecedented,” he said, adding that in the previous summits held in Qatar and Russia, only three or four presidents attended.
The Gas Summit is a meeting of heads of states and governments of GECF member countries. It is an opportunity for heads of states to interact and exchange views.
The Summit affords GECF member states the opportunity to discuss at the highest level developments, trends, and policies on energy in general and gas in particular and also to reaffirm their continued support to the objectives of the Forum.
The forum, founded in 2001, unites leading natural gas exporting countries and coordinates cooperation between its member states.
