Salehi Urges ECO To Serve Interests Of Regional Nations

Baku, Oct 15, IRNA – Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi expressed hope on Monday morning here in the Azeri capital that the outcomes of the foreign ministerial meeting and summit of Economic Cooperation Council (ECO) would serve the interests of the regional countries. “Fortunately, the ECO experts during past two days have reached a consensus on different issues related to ECO,” the foreign minister said. Salehi arrived here Baku on Monday morning to attend the 20th ministerial meeting of the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO). Iranian ambassador to Baku, Mohsen Pak-Aien, Supreme Leader's representative in the Republic of Azerbaijan, Seyyed Ali Akbar Ojaqnejad, and the Azeri ambassador to Tehran, Javanshir Akhundov welcomed Salehi at Baku International Airport on Monday morning local time. The ECO meeting will focus on the developments over past two years during the rotating chair of Turkey over ECO, and the objectives of vision document of ECO for 2015, as well as the performance of the organization Azerbaijan will also take over ECO's rotating chair from Turkey. Iran handed over ECO's rotating chair to Turkey in a conference in Istanbul, Turkey in 2010. The ECO foreign minister will also discuss the report of ECO experts and ECO executive documentation process, as well as agreements and regional cooperation pacts of the organization. In addition to ECO ministerial meeting, the presidents of ECO's member-states will attend the ECO Summit slated for Tuesday (October 16). The Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) was established in 1985 by Turkey, Iran and Pakistan. Then Republic of Azerbaijan and countries of former Soviet republics or Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) joined the organization as of 1993. The ECO has 10 member-states at present time. Turkey, Republic of Azerbaijan, Islamic Republic of Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan are member-states of ECO./end