Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 12
Trend:
Azerbaijan confirms the interest and readiness for the resumption of meetings as part of the trilateral working group on uniting the energy systems of Azerbaijan, Iran and Russia, Natig Abbasov, Azerbaijani Deputy Energy Minister, said in an exclusive interview with Trend Nov. 12.
Abbasov was commenting on Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak’s statement on the need to resume the tripartite talks on the issue.
He said that the issue of creating the "North-South" energy corridor has always been on the agenda.
"In this regard, a trilateral meeting was held in Baku in 2014,” Abbasov said. “Both Iran and Russia have always shown interest in the project. As a transit country, Azerbaijan is also very interested in this project."
He said that Azerbaijan is technically ready for the project implementation in the north and in the south.
"The country has the necessary infrastructure that allows receiving and transmitting electricity,” Abbasov said. “There is necessary capacity at the Derbent-Yashma transmission line and the Imishli-Parsabad transmission line. We have the parallel operation of energy systems with Russia because there has been a single system since the Soviet period. There is also a contract signed between Azerenergy with Russian Inter RAO. It is still impossible to create a parallel mode of operation with Iran due to the difference in frequencies. Iran’s investments will be required to create such a regime. We have all technical opportunities to transfer energy from Russia to Iran and vice versa."
Earlier, Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak confirmed the interest in uniting the energy systems with Azerbaijan and Iran. Novak made this statement at the 12th meeting of the permanent Russian-Iranian commission on trade and economic cooperation.
"We also confirm our interest in further consideration of the issue of uniting the energy systems of Russia, Iran and Azerbaijan,” he said. “We consider the resumption of the tripartite working group as expedient."
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