Energy component should prevail in the GUAM members’ cooperation. Such was the message of Ukrainian president Viktor Yuschenko’s speech he made the day before at the meeting of the GUAM countries’ leaders. ‘Energy issues in terms of creating new transit potentials should be focused at by all the participants,’ Interfax quotes the president. The head of the Ukrainian state added that for the first time at the energy summit in Vilnius the GUAM countries would be accompanied at the national level by Lithuania and Poland to implement the project of building the Odesa — Brody — Gdansk oil pipeline. V.Yuschenko emphasized that Ukraine is highly interested in forming a new energy potential of the countries of the Black Sea, the Baltic Sea and the Caspian Sea regions. ‘Ukraine today is ready to offer the export of its own electric power to any part of the European market that might need it,’ he said.
Speaking about the GUAM contribution in the development of the international relations V.Yuschenko said: ‘We have a unique project that gives us an extremely valuable ground for cooperation.’
Azerbaijani president Ilkham Aliev paid attention to the fact that the GUAM countries have similar problems that request the members’ joint efforts to be solved. The president of Azerbaijan said that some GUAM countries are still suffering from regional conflicts: in the Southern Osetia, in Nagornyi Karabakh and Prydnistrovye, and only joint efforts of the GUAM members may provide the possibility of their peaceful solution under the international law. He also emphasized the UN’s great role in this process.
I.Aliev also expressed his hope that further development of cooperation with Euro-Atlantic structures will solve the conflicts, and their areas would enjoy stable economic growth. Azerbaijani president noted that the GUAM today has completely transformed into a powerful organization recognized by all international bodies and supported by the EU.
Another participant of the meeting, Georgian president Mykhail Saakashvili thinks that the GUAM lays a peculiar bridge from the Soviet past into the democratic future. According to the Georgian president, the GUAM is a very powerful organization, and has established good relations with the European countries, Japan and the USA. Ukrainian president also expressed his support for broadening the GUAM’s cooperation with the UN, the USA and Japan.
The GUAM includes Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldova. The GUAM countries’ leaders took part in the conference on energy issues in Vilnius on October 10 — 11.
