Azernews.Az

By Akbar Mammadov

Azerbaijani Parliament on May 31 ratified four draft laws on visa, trade, military and security cooperation with Turkey.

The parliament signed the agreement on Mutual Visa Exemption between Azerbaijan and Turkey. The agreement will allow Turkish citizens to stay in Azerbaijan for a period of no more than 90 days without a visa. Eearlier, Turkey ratified the law to exempt Azerbaijani citizens from visa for the period of 90 days.

The parliament also ratified the “Preferential Trade Agreement between Azerbaijan and Turkey”.

The Preferential Trade Agreement was signed on February 25 during Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s visit to Azerbaijan and aims to step up efforts to bring their trade volume to $15bn.

The parliament also ratified the following draft laws: “The Agreement on Military Financial Cooperation between the Government of Azerbaijan and the Government of Turkey”, and “Approval of the Additional Protocol to the Agreement on Security Cooperation between the Government of Azerbaijan and the Government of Turkey”.

So far, Azerbaijan has invested 18 billion dollars in the Turkish economy and Turkey 12.5 billion dollars in the Azerbaijani economy. Currently, about 4,000 Turkish companies work in Azerbaijan, and have done work worth $16 billion in more than 300 projects, thereby making Turkey the first-ranked country in Azerbaijan’s economy.

It should be noted that during Erdogan’s visit in February, the two countries also signed a Memorandum of Understanding on the construction of the Kars-Nakhchivan railway between Turkey and Azerbaijan’s Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic.

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Akbar Mammadov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AkbarMammadov97

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