Southern Gas Corridor would have never been realized without our leadership role, says Azerbaijani President

Baku, January 29, AzerTAc “If we had not assumed the leadership role, the Southern Gas Corridor would have never been realized,” President Ilham Aliyev has said. “I personally took part in at least 10 international events related to the Nabucco project. There was nothing more than discussion there. Statements, speeches, adoption of resolutions – that was all. After that, everyone left and the work remained undone. I took part in at least 10 events and every time I said that there must be a leader. How can this project be implemented? What are its main elements? This is not a particularly difficult question. But it was all useless. Then we saw that the project was simply at a standstill.” The President said: “We put forward the initiative again and proposed the TANAP project. We gave it a name and we were the initiators. In 2012 we signed this project with Turkey. After that opportunities were ushered for the Southern Gas Corridor. What would have happened if we hadn’t done that?! It would have remained unchanged. Or let’s look at the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars project. This issue was discussed a decade ago, but did not go any further than discussions.” “If we had not taken the initiative, made a tangible proposal and provided financial resources, we would still be talking about it today. And ministers would still be holding conferences here and there. We are doing concrete things. Real things are reflected in life. So there is an Azerbaijani model today. After all, we are not engaged in idle talk, we do real things, serve and will continue to serve the people,” the head of state added.