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By Trend

Heydar Aliyev launched great projects of economic cooperation which overcame the regional framework and grew rapidly to global importance, former President of Romania, and Member of the Nizami Ganjavi International Center Emil Constantinescu told Trend.

Emil Constantinescu was sharing his memories of Heydar Aliyev as part of the joint Trend-NGIC project titled "The lasting legacy of Heydar Aliyev".

"My presidential mandate coincided with the time when President Heydar Aliyev, after managing to stabilize the country’s domestic affairs and included Azerbaijan in NATO’s Partnership for Peace, launched two great projects of economic cooperation which overcame the regional framework and grew rapidly to global importance. I am referring here to TRACECA [Transport Corridor Europe-Caucasus-Asia - international transport program involving the EU and 12 member states of the Eastern European, Caucasus and Central Asian region] and the Rebirth of the Silk Road," he said.

"Our first meeting took place in Istanbul, in April 1997, at the Black Sea Economic Cooperation Business Forum, where, upon the invitation of our host, President Suleyman Demirel, I participated together with President Aliyev and Shevardnadze, and decided to join our efforts in order to revive transport on the Ancient Silk Road," he added.

Constantinescu noted that it was at this meeting that President Aliyev advanced also the idea of an Oil Road that would connect Azerbaijan with Romania, the two countries which, along with the United States of America, originate the first industrial oil exploitations.

"The collaboration with President Aliyev was strengthened through our common actions in several Summits. This spirit of sincere collaboration for a better and more peaceful world was taken over by the Nizami Ganjavi International Center which managed to gather together prestigious democratic leaders of the contemporary world as well as distinguished representatives of academia in the Forums organized in Baku as well as in other prestigious locations in the world, to which I participated every year, bearing in mind the belief that only a culture of peace can provide humanity with a prosperous future," concluded the former president of Romania.

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